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THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE 



THE 

PROBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE 

AS VIEWED BY THE GREAT THINKERS 
FROM PLATO TO THE PRESENT TIME 

BY 
RUDOLF EUCKEN 

professor of philosophy in the university of jena; 
awarded the nobel prize for literature in 1908 

Translated from the German 

BY 
WILLISTON S. HOUGH 

)EAN OF TEACHERS COLLEGE AND PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION 

AT THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY; EDITOR OF THE ENGLISH 

TRANSLATION OF ERDMANN'S "HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY," ETC. 

AND 

W. R. BOYCE GIBSON 

LECTURER IN PHILOSOPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON; AUTHOR OF 
"RUDOLF EUCKEN 'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE," ETC. 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1909 






tftA 



Copyright, 1909. by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

Published September, 1909 



SEP 13 1909 




AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION 

It is a genuine pleasure to me to see "The Problem of Human 
Life" in an English Version, particularly as the translation has 
been prepared with great care by esteemed friends, and is, I 
think, entirely successful. 

The present book forms the essential complement of all my 
other works. It is designed to afford historical confirmation of 
the view that conceptions are determined by life, not life by 
conceptions. Under the guidance of this conviction the book 
traverses the whole spiritual development of the Western world, 
in the hope that the several phases of the development, and, 
above all, its great personalities, will be brought nearer to the 
personal experience of the reader than is customarily done. 
Particularly in an age of predominant specialisation, when the 
pursuit of learning too often endangers the completeness of 
living, such an endeavour is fully justified. 

I hope that the English-speaking public will give the book a 
sympathetic reception. With their own thinkers, the problem 
of life has always stood in the foreground, and scientific re- 
search steadily regarded the whole life of man. Thus my book 
presents nothing foreign to the genius of the English-speaking 
peoples: may it be felt and welcomed by them as something 
kindred to their own aims! 

Rudolf Eucken. 

Jena. 



TRANSLATORS' PREFACE 

The following translation of Eucken's "Die Lebensanschau- 
ungen der grossen Denker: Eine Entwickelungsgeschichte des 
Lebensproblems der Menschheit von Plato bis zur Gegenwart" 
is based substantially upon the seventh German edition, Leip- 
zig, 1907. But, owing to the rapidity with which the three 
last editions have succeeded the fifth, and to unavoidable in- 
terruptions of the work of translation, the above statement re- 
quires a word of explanation. The translation was begun from 
the fifth edition, and had progressed as far as the section on 
Origen, when the sixth edition appeared. This edition presented 
no changes, other than purely verbal ones, in the portion already 
translated, except in the account of Plato, particularly the im- 
portant section on the Theory of Ideas. The passages affected 
were, of course, revised in accordance with the text of the new 
edition. The seventh edition being almost immediately called 
for, and Mr. Boyce Gibson having consented to undertake the 
translation of Part Third, the relatively extensive alterations 
and additions designed for this edition were communicated to 
the translators in MS. The new material, however, with but 
two or three exceptions, concerned only the portions not yet 
translated, and was accordingly readily incorporated into the 
text. The translation as it stands, therefore, is in all essential 
respects a version of the seventh German edition. 1 

But mention should be made of certain omissions from the 
text of the original in Parts First and Second. The author gave 
his ready assent to the exercise of a minor editorial privilege in 
this regard; and, solely with a view to condensation, a few para- 

1 The eighth edition, which has appeared since the translation was in 
type, contains, as the author has assured the translators, " no material 
changes or additions, but only verbal improvements of the German text, 
which may be entirely ignored, so far as the translation is concerned." 



VJ11 



TRANSLATORS' PREFACE 



graphs, and an occasional sentence or even phrase, particularly 
in the relatively long accounts of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and 
Augustine, and in the section on Origen, have been omitted, 
entirely at the discretion of the first-named translator. No at- 
tempt has been made to indicate the points at which such omis- 
sions occurred ; but their whole number would not aggregate 
more than a few pages. 

The work of translation has been divided as follows, each 
translator being solely responsible for the portion undertaken 
by him. Parts First and Second, on Hellenism and on Chris- 
tianity respectively, and the Author's Preface to the English 
Edition, have been translated by Mr. Hough ; Part Third, on 
the Modern World, and the Introduction, have been translated 
by Mr. Gibson. It should be said, however, that nearly all of 
the first draft of those parts for which Mr. Gibson is responsible 
was made by his wife, and that her collaboration upon the whole 
work of this portion has been of the first importance. For the 
preparation of the Indexes the translators are further indebted 
to Mrs. Gibson, and, in part, to Mrs. Hough. 

The translators have felt keenly the difficulty of deciding upon 
an English title for the work which would be wholly free from 
objection. The title finally adopted may at first appear to be a 
bold substitution; but familiarity with the work will make it 
clear that in reality it sounds the key-note of the book. If it be 
objected that the virtual transposition of the principal and the 
subordinate title of the original could only result in a change of 
emphasis, the reply is that this alternative was chosen as the 
least of many evils. It may be added that the author preferred 
the title adopted to any of the others proposed. 

In preparing the English Version the translators have set 
accuracy before all else. They are, however, of opinion that 
fidelity is in general not to be secured by literal transcription. 
Moreover, since the present work is designed for the larger 
public as well as for academic uses, they have endeavoured to 
keep the diction as free as possible from technical expressions 
and from traces of German idiom. At the same time it should 



TRANSLATORS' PREFACE ix 

be said that the style of the original, by virtue indeed of the very 
qualities which give it its distinction and individuality, presents 
certain difficulties which the translators cannot hope wholly to 
have surmounted ; and, particularly in view of the distinguished 
recognition which the literary value of the author's work has 
recently received, they submit their translation to the public 
with no little diffidence. 

In conclusion, the translators desire to express their obligations 
to Lady Welby, who kindly read Part First in MS., and made 
numerous valuable suggestions ; to Professor Arthur C. Mc- 
Giffert, who similarly read the MS. of Part Second, and gave it 
the benefit of his intimate knowledge of early Christianity ; but 
particularly to the author, who not only read the entire transla- 
tion in MS., but has throughout assisted the translators with 
advice on any points of unusual difficulty. 

W. S. H. 
W. R. B. G. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction xvii 

PART FIRST— HELLENISM 

A. Thinkers of the Classical Period 3 

I. Preliminary Remarks on the Greek Character and on 

the Development of Hellenism 3 

II. Plato 16 

(a) Introductory 16 

(6) The Doctrine of Ideas 18 

(c) Life's Goods 21 

(d) Asceticism and the Transfiguration of the World . 26 

(e) The View of Human Life as a Whole .... 31 
(/) The Several Departments of Life 35 

(a) Religion 35 

(/S) The State 37 

(7) Art 40 

(8) Science 41 

(g) Retrospect 42 

III. Aristotle 44 

(a) General Characteristics 44 

(b) Elements of the Aristotelian View of the World . 46 

(c) The Sphere of Human Experience 52 

(d) The Several Departments of Life 61 

(a) The Forms of Human Association .... 61 

(£) Art 67 

(7) Science 69 

(e) Retrospect 71 

B. Post-Classical Antiquity 76 

I. The Systems of Worldly Wisdom 76 

(a) The Intellectual Character of the Hellenistic Period . 76 

(b) The Epicureans 81 

(c) The Stoics 86 



xii CONTENTS 



PAGE 



II. Religious Speculation "... 95 

(a) The Trend Toward Religion 95 

(b) Plotinus 102 

(a) Introductory 102 

(/3) The Basis of the View of the World ... 105 

(7) The World and the Life of Man 108 

(8) The Stages of Spiritual Creation in 

(e) Union with God 115 

(X) Retrospect 121 

(c) The Greatness and the Limitations of Antiquity . 123 

PART SECOND— CHRISTIANITY 

A. The Foundation 131 

I. The General Character of Christianity 131 

(a) Introductory Considerations 131 

(b) The Fundamental Facts 134 

(c) The Christian Life 139 

(a) Regeneration of the Inner Life 139 

(/3) The Closer Union of Mankind 142 

(7) The Acquisition of a History 143 

(8) The New Attitude Toward Suffering . . . 145 

(d) The Complications and the True Greatness of 

Christianity 147 

II. Jesus's View of Life 150 

(a) Preliminary Remarks 150 

(b) The Elements of Jesus's View of Life . . . . 153 

(c) The Religion and the Ethics of Jesus . . . . 158 

(d) The Collision with the World 165 

(e) The Permanent Result 168 

B. Early Christianity 172 

I. The Pre-Augustinian Period 174 

(a) A Sketch of the First Centuries 175 

(b) Early Christian Speculation 190 

(a) Clement and Origen 190 

(/3) The Influence of Neo-Platonism. Gregory of 

Nyssa 199 

(c) The Formation of an Ecclesiastical Rule of Life . 205 



CONTENTS xiii 



PAGE 



II. Augustine 211 

(a) General Characteristics 211 

(b) The Soul of Life 215 

(c) The Religious Form of the Spiritual World . . 220 

(d) The History of the World and Christianity . . . 227 

(e) The Church 236 

(/) Retrospect 245 

III. The Middle Ages 248 

(a) The Early Middle Ages 248 

(b) The Culmination of the Middle Ages 252 

(c) The Later Middle Ages 265 

C. Modern Christianity 269 

I. The Reformation 269 

(a) Luther 273 

(b) Zwingli and Calvin 290 

II. Christianity and the Last Centuries 295 

PART THIRD— THE MODERN WORLD 

A. General Characteristics of the Modern World .... 303 

B. The Rise of the New World 308 

I. The Renaissance 308 

(a) The Fundamental Characteristics of the Renais- 

sance 308 

(b) Cosmic Speculation. Nicholas of Cusa and Gior- 

dano Bruno 321 

(c) The Art of Human Conduct. Montaigne . . . 331 

(d) The New Attitude Toward Nature and the Control 

of Nature Through Science. Bacon .... 336 

II. The Enlightenment 345 

(a) General Characteristics of the Enlightenment . . 345 

(b) The Leaders of the Enlightenment 351 

(a) Descartes 351 

(ft) Spinoza 362 

(ad) Introduction 362 

(bb) The World and Man 362 

(cc) Man and His Littleness 366 



xiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

(dd) Man and His Greatness 369 

(ee) Appreciation 375 

(7) Locke 3 8 ° 

(6) Leibniz 388 

(aa) The Distinctive Character of His Thought . 388 

(bb) Cosmology 392 

(cc) Reconciliation of Philosophy and Religion. 400 

(c). Enlightenment: Period of Decline. Adam Smith . 405 

C. The Breaking-up of the Enlightenment and the Search for 

New Solutions 419 

I. Reactions Against the Enlightenment in the Eighteenth 

Century 420 

(a) Hume 420 

(b) Rousseau 423 

II. German Idealism 435 

(a) Kant 435 

(a) General Characteristics 435 

(/3) The Critique of Knowledge and the Break-up of 

the Old Intellectual Order 436 

(7) The Moral World 444 

(8) The Sphere of the Beautiful 451 

(e) Appreciation and Criticism 452 

(b) The German Humanistic Movement and Its Ideal 

of Life 457 

(a) General Characteristics 457 

(j3) Goethe 464 

(7) Schiller 474 

(B) The Romantic Movement 477 

(c) German Speculative Thought in Its Relation to the 

Problem of Life 483 

(a) Systems of Constructive Thought 484 

(aa) Fichte 486 

(bb) Schelling 490 

(cc) Hegel 494 

(/?) Schleiermacher 507 

(7) Schopenhauer, and the Reaction Against Ra- 
tional Idealism 510 



CONTENTS xv 



PAGE 



III. The Movement Toward Realism 518 

(a) Positivism 523 

(a) French Positivism. Comte 524 

(/3) English Positivism. Mill and Spencer . . . 533 

(b) Modern Science and the Theory of Evolution . . 536 

(c) Modern Sociology. Social Democracy and Its View 

of Life 542 

IV. The Reaction Against Realism 553 

(a) Idealistic Movements in the Nineteenth Century . 554 

(6) Subjectivism. Nietzsche 559 

V. The Present Situation 565 

Index of Names 573 

Index of Subjects 575 



INTRODUCTION 

What does our life mean when viewed as a whole? What 
are the purposes it seeks to realise? What prospect of happi- 
ness does it hold out to us? To ask these questions is to set 
ourselves the Problem of Life, nor need we stay to justify our 
right to ask them. They force themselves on us to-day with 
resistless insistence. They are the cry of an age rent in- 
wardly asunder, its heart at enmity with the work of its 
hands. The labour of the preceding centuries, nay, of the 
last few decades, has indeed been immeasurably fruitful. It 
has given birth to a new culture and to new views of the uni- 
verse. But its triumphal progress has not implied a simul- 
taneous advancement of the inward life; its dazzling victories 
have not been won for the spirit and substance of man. With 
relentless energy it has driven us more and more exclusively 
upon the world without us, subduing us to its necessities, press- 
ing us more and more closely into the service of our environ- 
ment. And the activities of our life ultimately determine our 
nature. If our powers are wholly concentrated on outward 
things and there is an ever-diminishing interest in the inner 
life, the soul inevitably suffers. Inflated with success, we yet 
find ourselves empty and poor. We have become the mere 
tools and instruments of an impersonal civilisation which first 
uses and then forsakes us, the victims of a power as pitiless as 
it is inhuman, which rides rough-shod over nations and indi- 
viduals alike, ruthless of life or death, knowing neither plan 
nor reason, void of all love or care for man. 

A movement of this nature, the disintegrating influences of 
which affect so closely the feelings and the convictions of the 
individual, cannot subsist long without reaction. In matters 
such as these, the problem is no sooner felt than the reaction 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

begins. Men cannot for long deny their spiritual nature and 
suppress all concern for its welfare. Their inner life holds its 
own against all pressure from without; it persists in relating all 
events to itself and summoning them for judgment before its 
own tribunal. Even opposition serves but to remind the Sub- 
ject of the fundamental and inalienable rights of its own in- 
wardness and freedom. So a slumbering giant needs only to 
be roused to the consciousness of his power to show himself 
superior to all the forces the world can bring against him. 
And when simultaneously with these changes an elemental 
passion for individuality of life and inner well-being asserts 
itself, when the rationality of existence, the salvation of the 
soul, become pressing, torturing problems, of a sudden the 
whole aspect of the world is transformed; that which was once 
held a sure possession now becomes a matter of painful per- 
plexity and an object of weary search. 

A regenerative movement of this kind is now in perceptible 
progress: and though the Powers of Mechanism still continue 
to extend their outward sway, our faith in them is shaken and 
the struggle against them has begun. Great movements are 
abroad to-day which, despite manifold differences of tendency, 
converge to a common issue. The passionate impetus of the 
social movement, the evidences of increasing religious earnest- 
ness, the ferment of artistic creation, all express one and the 
same desire, an ardour of longing for more happiness, for a 
fuller development of our human nature, for a new and a loftier 
order of life. 

And yet, despite its progress, the movement is still in many 
respects very incomplete and chaotic. It is not only that cer- 
tain of its side-currents variously intersect and frustrate each 
other; the main stream itself is a curious blend of higher and 
lower, nobility and meanness, youthful freshness and senile 
punctiliousness. Instead of seeking to transform his inward 
experience into an ordered cosmos and to strengthen freedom 
into law, the Subject is apt to measure his progress by the ex- 
tent to which he can dispense with all authority, not excluding 



INTRODUCTION xix 

that of his own nature. Breaking free from all restraint, he is 
borne aloft like some vain empty bubble, the plaything of wind 
and weather, and falls an easy prey to every kind of irrationality 
and folly. Thus we are conscious primarily of an atmosphere 
of ferment, restlessness, passion. We preserve our faith in the 
rationality of the movement only by treating it as a mere begin- 
ning and trusting that the spiritual necessity at work within it 
will in the end prevail over all individual illusions and conceits 
and build up the inward life on a systematic and well-ordered 
plan. To this end, however, our untiring co-operation is essen- 
tial: we must sift and separate, clarify and deepen. Only 
through the strain of self-conflict can the Age truly realise 
itself, and accomplish its part in the evolution of the world's 
history. 

Nor can Philosophy stand aloof from the struggle; she also 
has her part to play. Is she not pre-eminently fitted to give this 
movement a large and generous meaning, to clear it from con- 
fusion and direct it toward its ultimate goal? Her first duty 
indeed is to the present and to the problems of the day; nor is 
she at liberty to take refuge from present issues in a near or a 
distant past. Historical considerations are— for the philosopher 
— subsidiary; and yet, if he respects the limitations under which 
they can alone be of service to him, they may most effectively 
support his own personal conviction. We would then briefly 
consider the following view: that it is both possible and useful 
to represent to ourselves in a living way the various philosophies 
of life as they have taken shape in the minds of the great think- 
ers. For with this contention is bound up the whole success or 
failure of our present undertaking. 

If these philosophies are to be of any help to us, we must 
give to the term "philosophy of life" a deeper meaning than it 
usually bears. We cannot interpret it as a set of select utter- 
ances on the subject of human life and destiny, or as a collec- 
tion of occasional reflections and confessions. For such de- 
liverances spring frequently from the mere mood of the mo- 
ment, and serve to conceal rather than reveal the essential 



xx INTRODUCTION 

quality of their author's thought. Moreover, shallow natures 
are not infrequently prodigal of confession — natures that have 
little that is worth confiding — while deeper souls are apt to 
withdraw their emotion from the public gaze, holding it sacred 
to the heart or bodying it forth only in their work. 

No; we are not concerned with the reflections of these 
thinkers about life, but with life itself as it is fashioned forth in 
their world of thought. We ask what light they have thrown 
upon human existence, what place and purport they assign to 
it, how they combine its active with its passive fimctions; in 
a word, what is the character of human life as they conceive it ? 
This question draws together the different threads of their 
thought and reveals to us the very depths of their soul. They 
become easy of access and of comprehension; they can make 
themselves known to us quite simply and speak in plain, straight- 
forward fashion to all who will give them a hearing. Surely 
this quest offers strong inducement to every receptive mind. 
From the abundance of these great personalities must there 
not be some overflow of strength, something that will purify, 
ennoble, and level up our own endeavour? 

Nor need we be troubled with the question whether these 
great thinkers supply everything that is essential and valuable 
in human achievement. We can at least say that they con- 
stitute the soul of it. For true creative work, the upbuilding of 
a realm of spiritual meanings and values, is not the product of 
mediocrity, but arises rather out of a direct antagonism to all 
that is petty and small in human affairs. On the lower level, 
spiritual activity is much too closely blent with alien and in- 
ferior elements, too solely at the disposal of small-minded aims, 
for it to be capable of producing any clearly defined and dis- 
tinctive conceptions of life. At all periods, it has been only 
the few who have possessed the greatness of mind, the inward 
freedom, the constructive power which alone make it possible 
to pursue the path of creative activity as an end in itself, to 
wrest unity from chaos, to win through the stress and strain 
of true creative work that glad and sure self-confidence without 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

which thought has no stability and work no profit. This, how- 
ever, does not mean that the creative genius is independent of 
his social and historical environment.. Even that which is 
greatest has its necessary presuppositions and conditions. The 
soil must be ready, the age must contribute the stimulus of its 
special problems, enthusiasm must be trained to willing ser- 
vice. To this limited extent a genius is but the ripe expression 
of his epoch, and the luminous idea only serves to intensify 
aspirations already alive in the community. But none the less 
does the great man lift the common life to an essentially higher 
[ planed )He does not merely unify existing tendencies, but brings 
about an inner transformation : he ennobles the whole message 
of the age. For it is he who first clearly distinguishes the 
spiritual from the merely human, the eternal from the tem- 
poral, who first gives to life an independent worth, a value of 
its own, who first attains to the conception of universal and 
imperishable truth. In so far as the Eternal can be appre- 
hended under time conditions, it is so apprehended by the great 
man; it is he who first frees it from its temporal setting to be- 
come a possession for all time. If then the creative geniuses 
of humanity are the true foci of all spiritual life, if in them its 
rays, else scattered, are concentrated to burn thereafter with an 
intensified, inextinguishable flame that in turn reillumines the 
whole, — then surely we may take comfort and rest assured 
that in studying the work of such men we are touching the very 
pulse of all creative activity. ~~J 

And the same reason that makes it worth our while to study 
them individually renders it equally advisable to consider 
carefully the relations of each to his contemporaries and suc- 
cessors. In the contemplation of these various types we be- 
come more distinctly and vividly aware of the different schemes 
of life open to us. The extremes between which we ordinarily 
oscillate are here set forth in most palpable form, and help to 
explain each other while defining their own positions ever more 
clearly. But as the ages pass and one set of conditions is re- 
placed by another, there is a tendency for the permanent to 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

become confused with the transitory. On the one hand, our 
multiplicity of systems seems to admit of reduction to a limited 
number of simple types, which, like the motifs of a tune, con- 
stantly recur through all changes of environment, and yet we 
perceive at the same time a steady progress, a constant influx 
of what is new. Life and the world open out in ever-broadening 
vistas. Problems of increasing difficulty arise; the current flows 
swifter and stronger. The whole detailed story would be needed 
to show us what this movement has achieved for us. We may 
not forestall the conclusion by any hasty generalising. So much, 
however, we may say, that if at first the history of philosophy 
seem like a battle in which every man's hand is against his 
fellow, in which the leaders are so engrossed with the develop- 
ment of their own individuality that they repel rather than 
attract each other, yet we must not on this account despair of 
unity and progress. One doctrine defies another only so long 
as the respective systems are regarded in the light of finished 
results and the intellect is called upon to be the sole and final 
arbiter of every question. Now it is precisely from such in- 
adequate conceptions that this study of ours can rescue us. 
When we ask how our great thinkers looked at life, we see that 
their thought had its source in the depths of the life-process 
itself, that its course is determined by certain vital needs, 
that it is but the expression of an inward struggle toward 
truth and happiness and spirituality. On the larger plane of 
this life-process many things help and supplement each other 
which in the more narrow and definite region of conceptual 
thinking are frankly antagonistic. It were even possible that 
all divisions should be included within one general progressive 
movement, and that in the friction of one mind with another 
we should find the true seat of creative activity. Now the 
principal phases of this movement are given us by the great 
thinkers, if we but pierce to the heart of their endeavour. It 
is under their guidance that we may be led from a remote past 
to the very threshold of our own day. It is they who can make 
the past live again for us, put us in possession of all that human 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

effort has achieved, and transplant us from a present of mere 
immediacy into a present that transcends our time-experience. 
It is this wider, more significant present that we so sorely need 
to-day; we need it to counteract the rush and hurry of everyday 
life, the narrowness of party spirit, the looseness of prevalent 
standards. Surely in fighting these things we do well to sum- 
mon to our aid the life-work of the great thinkers. 

But, with all its attractions, the undertaking is fraught with 
difficulties of no ordinary kind. Can we bring the object of our 
study close to us, can we enter into sympathetic communion 
with him, and yet observe the necessary amount of objectivity 
in our treatment ? The answer must depend on what we mean 
by objectivity. What we certainly do not want is an objectivity 
which fights shy of all subjective verdicts; for such objective 
treatment, no matter how exact and thorough, can do no more 
than collect and arrange the data, and if it gives even a passable 
presentation of its object, it only does so inadvertently by filling 
in the gaps with merely conventional appreciations. No! At 
every moment our task compels us to judge for ourselves, to 
classify and divide, to sift and to separate. This is true even 
as regards such relatively external matters as the choice of 
material; much more do we need to exercise independence of 
judgment if we would penetrate to the unity which underlies 
and dominates the most varied forms of expression, if we would 
share the inward experiences of the great men whom we study, 
and recognise that they are organically related to each other 
and linked together in one unbroken sequence. And yet, 
whilst we discountenance an unspiritual objectivity, it must not 
be supposed that we give ourselves over to an unbridled sub- 
jectivity. It cannot be right for us to interpret the personality 
we are studying in the light of our subjective preferences, or 
develop his meaning only in so far as he seems to confirm our 
previous convictions. Such a procedure would never allow us 
to penetrate to his real self; still less would it acquaint us with 
the inner currents of human progress, or conduce to that larger 
thought and wider horizon which we hope to gain through our 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

inquiry. We conclude, then, that while striving to get into close 
contact with each thinker, we must yet not obtrude ourselves 
too far. We must allow him to speak for himself and to make 
good his own position. Our final verdict must not be the result 
of individual reflection; it must be reached through a vivid por- 
trayal of the man himself and of the influence he has exercised 
on the world at large. Nothing should be to us more vitally 
important than the endeavour to re-establish a direct relation 
between reader and Thinker. That such an undertaking im- 
plies at the same time an independent stand-point, particularly 
in relation to the Philosophy of History, will be at once obvious 
to all who are familiar with such questions. 

Other difficulties arise out of our relationship to learned 
specialisation. We have no quarrel with specialisation in it- 
self. For not only does the very growth of detailed inquiry 
call for the syntheses that shall gather the detail together; these 
more comprehensive pictures themselves gain their richness 
from the detail. The more exact our information as to the 
relation of the Thinker to his historical and social environment, 
the more skilful the analysis of his work into its component 
threads, the more clear-cut and vivid will the outlines of our 
picture become. A quarrel becomes inevitable only when the 
specialist brooks no other work than his, when he thinks his 
apparatus sufficient to fathom the whole personality, when he 
tries to explain greatness as the accumulated result of infin- 
itesimal accretions; for what really makes the Thinker great is 
that which transcends mere historical explanation: it is the 
power of original creation, the Unity which animates and 
illumines everything from within. And to this, mere learning 
and criticism are necessarily blind. It reveals itself only to an 
Intuition whose mode of apprehension is sympathetically crea- 
tive. It is even possible that the merely learned study of a 
personality may remove us further from him, by interposing 
between the spectator and the object something that claims 
attention for itself, thus disturbing the total impression. Let 
us beware then of confusing accidentals with essentials, means 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

with ends; of overlooking ideas in our anxiety about facts, and 
making original research do duty for spiritual intuition. 

We are bound, in entering upon the present work, to ob- 
serve the utmost care and caution. But we must not let the 
difficulties daunt us and cloud the joy with which we embark 
upon our task. Despite all perplexities, there is a quite peculiar 
charm — and profit, too, shall we add — in trying to understand 
how the great thinkers looked at life. The deep yearning for 
truth and happiness which breathes from all their writings 
carries us away by its intensity; and yet there is something 
magically soothing and strengthening in the mature works into 
which such yearnings have been crystallised. Different though 
our own conviction may be, we rejoice none the less in the 
victories of creative genius and the transparent lucidity of its 
productions. Our culture is constantly bringing us into close 
touch with these master-minds; our work is linked with theirs 
by a myriad threads. Yet, closely as they concern us, their 
personality as a whole is often strangely unfamiliar; there may 
be an utter absence of any real intimacy between us and them. 
We gaze into the Pantheon from without, but the gods do not 
descend from their lofty pedestals to share our trials and sor- 
rows, nor do they even seem to be fellow-workers with each 
other. How different when we turn to the inner sources of 
their creative activity, when we penetrate to those deep regions 
of the spirit in which their work reveals itself as the expression 
and assertion of their true nature. The frozen forms then warm 
into life and begin to speak to us. We see them impelled by the 
same problems which determine our own weal and woe. We 
also see them linked together as workers in one common task: 
the task of building up a spiritual world within the realm of 
human life, of proving our existence to be both spiritual and 
rational. The walls of division break down at last, and we pass 
into the Pantheon as into a world that belongs to us, as into our 
own spiritual home. 



PART FIRST 
HELLENISM 



HELLENISM 



A. THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 

I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE GREEK CHARACTER 
AND ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF HELLENISM 

A just estimate of the Greek thinkers is often rendered 
difficult by an overestimate of the average character of the Greek 
people. What the intellectual leaders produced at the cost of 
supreme effort is vaguely attributed to the natural endowment 
of the people as a whole. Because creative activity at its height 
found joy and felicity in itself, and from this elevation shed 
abroad a bright serenity of mood, Greek life in general puts on 
the appearance of a perpetual festival; and because among the 
great a distinguished sentiment scorned all considerations of 
mere utility, the thinking and feeling of the whole nation seems 
raised to intellectual nobility. Thus the creations of genius 
appear to be scarcely more than a precipitation of the social 
atmosphere. But this impression rapidly vanishes on closer 
view. Whoever follows the average political activity of the 
Greeks, with its unrest and passion, its envy and malice; 
whoever considers the multitudinous forms of Greek avarice 
and Greek craftiness; whoever turns from Greek comedy to 
cast a glance at the often downright repulsive everyday life 
— will soon be convinced that even the Greeks were men lite 
ourselves, that they too did not acquire their greatness as a 
simple inheritance from nature, but had to achieve it by hard 
struggle, even against themselves. Accordingly, the position 
of the great thinkers is relatively raised, and we see that 



4 HELLENISM 

their life-work extends its influence far beyond their immediate 
surroundings. 

But to contend for the great superiority of the thinkers as 
compared with the average does not imply that we would detach 
them from the intellectual character of the nation. Rather, 
the common intellectual life, with its strength and freshness, its 
mobility and buoyancy, prepared the way for the thinkers, and 
surrounded them with a stimulating, formative, and guiding 
influence. True, they could not realise their aims without 
trusting above all to their own genius, and without unhesitatingly 
waging war upon the popular traditions. But their labours 
had not the depressing isolation and loneliness which later ages, 
with a more erudite culture and more complex conditions of 
life, often show. This close relationship of the thinkers with 
their people is particularly noteworthy during the epoch of the 
moulding of civilisation by national forces, which will first occupy 
us; but it is not lost in the Hellenistic period, when the tendency 
is to pass from the national to the broadly human standpoint, 
and when thought is rather the work of isolated individuals. 
Indeed, even in the later, confused times, when Hellenism was 
submerged by the enormous influx of foreign elements, the 
smaller arteries of the national life still showed traces of the 
classical way of thinking; thus even upon the approaching 
night was shed a ray of the same sun under whose full splendour 
the immortal masterpieces were perfected. 

Accordingly, to form a just appreciation of the Greek thinkers, 
we must first recall their intellectual environment. Nothing 
about the Greeks impresses one more than their great energy of 
life, the strong impetus toward the development of every faculty, 
the youthful, ever-fresh pleasure in creative activity. Indolence 
is unsparingly condemned; action does not need the endorse- 
ment of a reward — it fascinates and delights in itself. To take 
up an active relation to things was ever the essence of Greek 
wisdom. But, with all its mobility, action here never leaves the 
sphere of the present world ; it does not presume to create things 
of its own initiative; it rather assigns to the objective world a 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 5 

nature of its own, and seeks to effect a fruitful interaction, by 
which it at once fashions the world and adjusts itself to it. 
Consequently, we find here no senseless brooding, no dreamy 
weaving of detached sentiments ; the mood always springs from 
and follows activity. But if action unites us so closely with 
things, the latter can be of use to us, and our intellectual nature 
will communicate itself to them. The Greek habit of thought 
personifies its environment; it throws out on all sides a reflection 
of human life. Since, however, it does not rob things of their 
peculiar character, they have a reciprocal effect upon human 
life, and enlarge, clarify, and ennoble it. Hence the personifica- 
tion of nature by the Greeks is incomparably more refined and 
fruitful than that of other peoples; and human life, by being 
thus mirrored objectively in the universe, receives a thorough 
purification and outgrows the crudity of nature. 

Action, too, is the best defensive weapon amid the dangers 
and trials of human existence. Whatever fortunes befell the 
Greek, his attitude was active; he always sought to bring to 
bear his own powers, and hence to wrest something rational 
from every experience, even from suffering. Whatever was 
hostile he attacked with spirit, and if he could not completely 
conquer it, he at least energetically repelled it. In such a 
strife man unfolds his powers, indeed attains that greatness of 
soul which makes him superior to the world. Such an attitude 
is the opposite not only of all trifling with moral evil, but also of a 
comfortable optimism. Where the experience of life is reflected 
so fully and clearly in the minds of men as appears in the intel- 
lectual work of the Greeks, the antagonistic forces also will be 
deeply felt. In fact, Hellenism wrestled in good earnest with 
all manner of obstacles; it steadily modified both the world of 
things and itself; in time its activity necessarily became more 
and more purely inward. But so long as it endured, it found 
the means of remaining active; and from such an active attitude 
it drew ever fresh courage, and even under the growing harshness 
of life it steadfastly asserted that the core of existence is rational. 
Hence prominent modern scholars are in error when they declare 



6 HELLENISM 

that the Greeks were pessimists. For no one is a pessimist 
merely because he feels deeply the suffering of life; rather it is 
he who yields to it, who gives up striving because of it. And 
that the Greeks never did. 

Just as man here places his chief reliance on activity, so also 
his creations are instinct with life and action. Human societies, 
particularly his own native state, appear as living beings, animate 
individuals; furthermore, nothing is more characteristic of the 
works of Greek art than that they are embodiments of spiritual 
movement. This animation extends to the smallest elements; 
even what is otherwise rigid and dead here manifests the pulsa- 
tion of inner life. 

This eager attitude toward the world of things leads us to 
expect both that man's activity will do full justice to the wealth 
of the actual world and that it will itself be developed into greater 
versatility. And we find, in fact, that the work of civilisation 
extends with wonderful universality into every sphere; all the 
realms of experience are successively explored, and to each is 
rendered its due. Movements which elsewhere exclude one 
another are here taken up with equal vigour and sympathy, 
and all the chief tendencies shown by the development of civilisa- 
tion down even to the present time are found in germ. Who- 
ever disputes this, and denies that the Greeks were great in 
religion, for instance, or in law, in exact science or in technical 
inventions, either estimates their achievements by alien standards 
or confines himself to the period alone celebrated as classical. 
In particular, the attention of modern critics often dwells too 
exclusively on what may indeed be the greatest, but is by no 
means the sole, characteristic of the Greeks, namely, their power 
of synthesis, of artistic shaping into a whole. But that the 
Greeks were also strong in sober observation, in acute analysis, 
and in illuminating reflection, is equally true, and belongs no 
less to the complete picture of their intellectual traits. 

Such breadth prevents their work as a whole from being 
cramped and narrowed by the peculiar nature of a single domain; 
rather it is left free and receptive enough to assimilate something 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 7 

from all sides; and by these many-sided experiences progress 
is made. This elasticity renders possible a significant history; 
great changes may take place without a loss of the traditional 
character and without destroying the continuity. The Greek 
considers himself distinguished from the barbarian in nothing 
so much as in the breadth and freedom of his life, when compared 
with the torpid narrow-mindedness of the latter. 

Kindred to freedom is lucidity. Whatever touches and moves 
man, whatever befalls him from without, and what is given to him 
from within, must alike attain complete transparency. Not until 
it does so, not until all the obscurity of the first stages is removed, 
and the result stands forth clear as sunlight, can any experience 
be recognised as forming part of human life and activity. 

This striving for clearness, however, differentiates itself into 
two movements, which at once oppose and supplement each 
other, namely, a theoretical and an artistic movement. 

On the one hand, there is the eager impulse to understand, 
to dispel all obscurity from the world by vigorous thought. 
What is here required is to bring order out of the given confusion, 
to concatenate all phenomena, to refer the various expressions 
of life to a common basis, to discern amid all change abiding 
entities. Such an effort is indeed much older than theoretical 
knowledge; even the earliest literary creations contain, although 
in veiled form, the thought of a universal order of things, a 
disavowal of vague, blind chance. But the theoretical move- 
ment cannot rise to the plane of science without shifting the 
point of view from the visible to the invisible world. Indeed, 
by its growth in independence, thought eventually becomes 
strong enough to trust solely to its own necessary laws, and to 
sacrifice the whole sensuous world, i. e., degrade it to the rank 
of mere appearance, in order to achieve knowledge of true being. 
By this development the Greeks become the creators of meta- 
physic. But the metaphysical trait characterising their work 
extends far beyond academic science; for great thoughts pervade 
their whole life and creative activity. Even in the mental life 
of the individual, the same impulse leads to clearness and to 



8 HELLENISM 

definite consciousness; whatever cannot give a rational account 
of itself is esteemed of little value; lucid knowledge must accom- 
pany and illuminate all conduct. Indeed, insight becomes the 
innermost soul of life; goodness appears to depend upon correct 
knowledge; evil, on the other hand, is an intellectual mistake, 
an error of judgment. 

But this predominance of the intellectual, this resolution of 
existence into abstract conceptions, is counterbalanced by the 
strong desire for sense-perception and for artistic form. The 
Greek wants not only to understand but to see; he wants to 
have the image as a whole before him, and to hold fast to its 
sensuous existence; exact thought finds a companion in light- 
winged fantasy; yet even the latter is not without laws, but 
steadily aims at proportion, order, and harmony. Everything 
here tends to assume completely definite shape; all form is out- 
wardly limited and in itself graduated; all relations are duly 
considered and definitely established; everything individual, by 
imposing a limit, receives one. The extension of this formative 
activity over the world of experience transforms the original 
chaos into a cosmos; it also banishes everything uncouth and 
grotesque. Above all, the eye must be gratified ; for its percep- 
tions reveal the full splendour of beauty, and lead up to the moun- 
tain tops of life. Such an attitude is intolerant of any chasm 
between inner and outer ; it is not satisfied with dreamy intima- 
tions or symbolic allusions; for it, delineation is not an acces- 
sory, but the indispensable completion of the thing itself. By 
this demand for sense-perception, activity is continually being 
brought back to the immediate world, and held fast there. The 
recognition of the multiplicity of things, which threatened to 
disappear before the unity sought for by thought, here upholds 
its undoubted rights; while beauty shows herself to be the 
twin-sister of rigorous truth. The union of these two tendencies, 
the artistic form taken by intellectual forces, represents the high- 
est attainment of the creative activity of the Greeks. On the 
one hand, the instinct for form prevents the search for truth 
from detaching itself from the world and becoming lost in the 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 9 

pathless and the illimitable; on the other, artistic construction 
is supplied with a noble material, and avoids sinking to the level 
of mere sensuous charm and pleasure. By means of such recip- 
rocal relations, the whole acquires inner movement, inexhaustible 
life, and perennial freshness. 

A thoroughly unique character is revealed even in these few 
traits; and this is the character which furnishes the environ- 
ment for the work of the philosophers and for the formation of 
views of life. But views of life of the philosophical stamp do not 
appear until late; and when they do appear, a considerable 
intellectual labour, in the form of inner liberation, has already 
been accomplished. The more naive state, in which man's life 
was closely interwoven with the visible environment, such as we 
see depicted in the Homeric poems, had already passed away. 
And the growth of the new conditions unfortunately cannot be 
traced, owing to the profound darkness that obscures the inner 
movements of the eighth and seventh centuries; and because 
in the sixth century the development was already fully unfolded, 
and in the fifth its triumph was consummated. All the principal 
spheres of life were by this time pervaded by a free and serious 
spirit. 

This was the case, first of all, with religion. True, the 
ancient gods were still held in honour, but their traditional repre- 
sentation was none the less subjected to a searching critique. 
Indignation was now aroused by anything which gave offence 
to the purified moral ideas; open conflict with the older views 
was indeed not shunned, but also in a quieter way, perhaps 
hardly noticed, a transference of interest to the moral and intel- 
lectual spheres took place. At the same time, the desire for 
unity grew ; although the plurality of divinities had by no means 
disappeared, polytheism was no longer a simple belief in co- 
existing deities; for a single divine Being was discerned as 
pervading all phenomena. Also, there now appeared germs of 
new developments, developments in different, indeed conflicting, 
directions. From the side of theoretical investigation arose a 
pantheistic tendency, the conviction that there is an all-compre- 



io HELLENISM 

hensive life, an impersonal Deity, from which the soul of man is 
derived, and to which it returns after life's course is run. On 
the other hand, from a deeper sense of the injustice of earthly 
things, and from solicitude for personal happiness and welfare, 
sprang an effort to rise above immediate existence, a detaching 
of the soul from the body, a belief in personal immortality, and 
a hope of a better Beyond. This was seen in the Orphic and 
Pythagorean societies. 

At the same time, the ethical life also won a greater indepen- 
dence and inwardness; in particular, the idea of the Mean as a 
moral criterion rose to power, and afforded at once a support for 
the mind and a standard for conduct. In the ethical sphere, 
and also in general, poetry exerted a powerful influence toward 
the deepening of spiritual life; indeed, an influence far above 
that exerted by the maxims of the aphorists. The development 
of lyric poetry, too, created a rich emotional life and increased 
the self -consciousness of the individual; love, or Eros, found an 
expression both in plastic art and in poetry. But the more in- 
ward and sensitive life became, the more difficult were the prob- 
lems, and the deeper grew the feeling of the contradictions of 
human existence. The drama courageously attacked these 
profounder problems, and in its own way cast up the sum of 
human destiny. Before philosophy gave a support to life the 
poets were the teachers of wisdom, the intermediaries between 
the old traditions and the future world of thought. 

The changes in the life of the State, moreover, affected the 
total welfare of man. The growth of democracy roused indi- 
viduals to activity and to the employment of all their powers; 
there resulted an increase of the points of contact, and of the 
rapidity of the development of life. It was no longer possible 
to take the traditional regime as self-evident : the laws were codi- 
fied, and thence arose general problems; people began to inquire 
into the rationality of the existing order, to compare the political 
arrangements of other states with their own, and to try new 
schemes. Thus, much passed into a fluid state, and a wide 
field was opened to critical discussion. There also took place 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD n 

an outward expansion of life due to the rapid growth of trade 
and commerce, and particularly to the founding of the colonies, 
which, owing to the contact afforded with the civilisations of 
other peoples, powerfully stimulated the minds of the Greeks. 
It was therefore no accident that philosophy took its rise in the 
colonies. 

With the change in the manner of life, the outlook upon the 
world changed. Philosophy, which in the case of the Greeks 
does not start from man and the problem of his happiness, but 
from the universe as a whole, aims to comprehend the world in 
a natural way, by means of its own interconnections; it seeks 
for an immutable substance, or for fixed quantitative relations. 
It is forced to discard the first impression of things, and to 
destroy their visible image; but with a sure instinct for the 
essential it reconstructs the world in outlines whose simplicity 
bears the marks of genius and excites our perpetual wonder. 
Thus, the mythological view of the world is successfully 
transcended, but less by direct attack than by providing a 
substitute. 

The effort to reach an independent explanation of things re- 
ceived additional assistance from astronomy. By showing that 
the movements of the stars are constant and conform to law, by 
discovering fixed systems in the structure of the universe and 
uniting the whole into the view of a cosmos, it was proved that 
even the Deity must put aside all arbitrary power and submit 
to the sway of law. The independent order and harmony of 
things proclaims the rationality of the world far more emphati- 
cally than the most marvellous interference with the regular course 
of things could do. That such a rationality not only sways the 
great world, but extends also to what is minute, to the apparently 
intangible, as it appears in the relations of number and limit, 
was disclosed in a startling manner by the discovery of the 
mathematical relations of tones. A strong influence upon the 
view of the world was exerted also by medicine. Not only was 
this science forced by its care for health into ascertaining with 
more exactness the causal connections within its own field, but 



12 HELLENISM 

it increased the precision of the conception of causation in 
general; it also revealed the close relation of man to nature, and 
recognised in him a miniature universe — the microcosm, which 
was conceived to bear within itself all the principal fluids and 
forces of the great world. 

Finally, man's own life and conduct were subjected to the 
scrutiny of an objective examination. The historian's art had 
barely attained independence before it manifested also a critical 
spirit, discriminated and sifted authorities, and in its judgments 
of human destiny diminished and restrained the element of the 
supernatural. Although writers personally maintained a pious 
reverence for the invisible powers, the trend of investigation was 
toward the explanation of events by the linking of causes and 
effects, and toward the connecting of individual destiny with 
personal conduct. 

The simultaneous development of all these movements pre- 
sents a marvellous drama, which is without a parallel in history. 
There was a progress of incomparable vigour and freshness, 
rising from dreamy perplexity and childlike submissiveness to 
an alert, free, manly existence; the inner life steadily grew in 
independence, and the narrowness of a merely human view 
yielded more and more to one illuminated by knowledge of the 
universe. In the midst of such changes, the sense of man's 
power emerged and grew ; great personalities appeared and made 
their individual traits felt; spiritual unrest seized the world; 
general problems sprang up and dominated thought; every- 
where there was an impulse to have matters cleared up, ex- 
plained, and mentally assimilated; everywhere there was a 
strong development in intellectual work and in general culture. 

Yet this progress of the new and decline of the old did not 
at first result in an abrupt break or complete revolution. In 
strengthening his own powers, man had not yet cut himself 
loose from things, nor shaken off the common associations. 
The time had not come when the individual takes his stand 
solely upon his own resources and boldly bids defiance to the 
whole world. 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 13 

But this time had to come, and it came. The increased power 
of the individual, which is the result of every intellectual move- 
ment on a large scale, eventually produces in excitable and active 
minds a feeling of unlimited superiority, of complete indepen- 
dence. Such a tendency transforms intellectual liberation into 
"enlightenment"; and, so long as a counterpoise is wanting, 
enlightenment must become increasingly radical. Thinking 
resolves itself into unrestrained rationalism, which recognises 
as valid nothing that does not fall in with its processes of reason- 
ing; it accordingly develops into a power of dissolution and 
dissipation, and becomes in particular the mortal enemy of his- 
torical tradition. For whatever ancient practices and customs 
it brings before its tribunal are already judged and condemned 
by the summons. If there is nothing constructive with which to 
offset this disintegrating process, life necessarily becomes more 
and more empty, and is steadily impelled toward a disastrous 
crisis. 

Such a trend toward radical enlightenment is exhibited by the 
Sophists. A just appreciation of these teachers is rendered 
especially difficult by the fact that the principal account we have 
of them is transmitted by their severest critic, and that the con- 
clusions which he draws may easily be mistaken for their own 
assertions. Above all, the Sophists were not theorists or pure 
philosophers, but teachers, teachers of a versatile cleverness in 
practical life, i. e., in general conduct no less than in persuasive 
argument. Their aim was to fit their pupils to do something 
with success; they sought in particular to give them an advantage 
over other men by a thorough training in rhetoric and dialec- 
tic. These aims corresponded to a need of the times, and served 
to rouse and develop men's minds. But closely interwoven 
with what was valuable lay not a little that was questionable, 
indeed unsound. For the whole movement rested upon the 
conviction that there is no such thing as objective truth, that we 
are bound by no sort of universal order, that, on the contrary, 
everything depends upon the opinions and the interests of men. 
Thus man became "the measure of all things." This saying 



i 4 HELLENISM 

may be differently interpreted, and may indeed be understood 
as an expression of a profound truth. But in circumstances 
where the accidental and the essential in man had not yet been 
distinguished, where a conception of humanity had not yet de- 
tached itself from its immediate manifestation in individuals, 
the phrase meant a renunciation of all universally valid standards, 
a surrender of truth to men's momentary caprice and fluctuating 
inclinations. In other words, it implied that everything may be 
turned this way or that, and differently judged, according to the 
point of view ; that what appears as the right may be represented 
as the wrong, and conversely; and that any cause may be cham- 
pioned, according to the necessities of the case, or to one's 
whim. In this manner life is gradually degraded into a means 
of the profit, the self-indulgence, even the sport, of the single 
individual, who acknowledges no restraints, feels no respect, and 
scoffs at the laws as being mere statutes, as an invention of the 
weak, to which he opposes the power and advantage of the 
stronger as the real natural right. Thus the good yields to the 
profitable ; all valuations become relative ; nowhere does 
conviction find a secure foothold, nowhere does conduct find a 
goal that lifts man above himself, or that commands his respect. 
To be sure, such a doctrine of relativity also has a justification, 
and every philosophical view must give it due consideration. 
But raised to a sovereign position, it becomes the deadly enemy 
of everything great and true. Its dialectic will then inevitably 
disintegrate all solid foundations, its clever play destroy the 
seriousness and all the deep meaning of life: the subjective 
sense of power, and all the talk about power, less and less conceal 
the lack of genuine force, and the hollowness of the whole 
Sophistic structure. Finally, such shifty and flippant doings end 
in frivolity. Yet there is nothing which mankind tolerates less 
in the long run than a frivolous treatment of the chief problems 
of its happiness and its intellectual existence. 

Still, it is easier to find fault with the Sophists than to transcend 
their position. The liberation of the individual subject does not 
admit of being simply revoked, for it has forever destroyed the 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 15 

power of mere authority and tradition to carry conviction. The 
position can be surmounted only by an inner development of life, 
in which the subject discovers within himself new relationships 
and new laws, and finds rising in his own soul a spiritual world, 
which shall free man from arbitrary power and give him an inner 
stability. To have accomplished this is the greatest service 
rendered by Greek philosophy; and it also marks the highest 
point reached in its development. 

The movement is started by Socrates. The character of his 
activity so closely resembles that of the Sophists in its outward 
aspect that, in the judgment of many of his contemporaries, he is 
simply to be classed with them. He too is active as a teacher, 
and seeks to prepare young men for life; he too argues and dis- 
cusses; he too wants to establish everything before the bar of 
reason; for him also man is the chief object of interest: in short, 
he seems to be an " enlightener," like the rest. But, unlike them, 
he attains a stable position, from which all thought and life are 
transformed. To him is revealed an insight into the profound 
difference between the varied and changing opinions of men and 
the concepts of scientific thought. In these concepts there ap- 
pears something fixed, immutable, universally valid; something 
which exerts a compelling influence, and excludes what is arbi- 
trary. Thus the whole of life becomes a subject of investigation. 
For the aim now is, by the analysis and criticism of concepts, 
to test the whole content of human existence as to its validity, to 
dispel every illusion, and to reduce life and action to their true 
terms. In this effort, Socrates does not achieve the result of a 
completed system; his work remains a quest, a quest that ever 
begins anew. True, he devises special methods for the dis- 
covery and definition of concepts; yet he cannot apply them 
alone, but only in converse with other men, in regulated dis- 
course. Hence his life and labour become a ceaseless dialogue. 
He remains in close touch with men, since his investigations are 
throughout concerned with the practical moral life. By estab- 
lishing this life upon rational insight, the good is raised above 
the caprice of individual opinion, and a new conception of virtue 



16 HELLENISM 

won. The vital thing now is not the outward performance, and 
the consequence for human society, but the inner conformity, 
the health and harmony of the soul. The inner life thus attains 
independence and individual worth; and it is so completely 
absorbed in itself that all questions of outward fortune fade into 
insignificance. The new ideas, indeed, are but imperfectly 
carried out; not a few aspects of the movement are trivial and 
pointless, and conflict with the main direction of effort. Never- 
theless, the revelation and acceptance of the independence of 
the inner nature remain in full force; and whatever is incom- 
plete and unreconciled sinks into insignificance before the truth 
and earnestness of Socrates's life-work, and particularly before 
the heroic death which put the seal upon that work. Thus a 
firmer foundation was laid, and a new path opened upon which, 
at the hands of Plato, the Greek view of life swiftlv reached its 
philosophical zenith. 

II. PLATO 

(a) Introductory 

To describe Plato's view of life is, indeed, the most difficult 
task of our whole undertaking. The principal reason for this 
is that the great personality, of which his works are the expres- 
sion, includes fundamentally different, indeed conflicting, tenden- 
cies. Plato is above all the kingly thinker, penetrating beyond 
all appearance, and rising triumphantly above all figurative 
thought and speech to the invisible essence of things: with a 
transcendent power he sets worlds over against worlds, moves 
inert masses as with the lightest touch, and makes fluid the most 
stubborn of contradictions. But the great thinker is also by 
divine prerogative an artist, who is everywhere impelled to crea- 
tive vision, who sketches powerful images with a convincing 
vividness, and whose versatile fantasy moulds all the work of 
thought into a thing of splendour. So powerful is the action of 
this fantasy, even in the inner structure of his work, that didactic 
statement and poetic myth often merge imperceptibly into one 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 17 

another. But Plato's thought and poetry are the outpouring of 
a great moral personality, which is itself the supreme touch- 
stone; and only that is accounted good and valuable which 
elevates the whole of the soul, and serves to strengthen, purify, 
and ennoble life. "All the gold above and beneath the earth 
does not outweigh virtue." Here a lofty mind banishes all that 
is impure and common; and the consciousness of the invisible 
bonds and the heavy responsibilities of human conduct lends 
to all effort a profound seriousness, indeed an unspeakable 
solemnity. Moreover, both the sentiment and the diction of 
Plato betray the influence of the new tendencies of the age toward 
an increasing inwardness in religion. 

That such different forces meet and mutually accentuate 
each other in the life-work of Plato gives to it its unique greatness. 
But the same fact also gives rise to inconsistencies which are 
never completely reconciled. Each trait unfolds itself far too 
independently not to come into frequent conflict with the 
others; there are numerous interferences and cross-currents; 
the result is that the whole is developed, now more in this direc- 
tion, now more in that. 

In view of such a variety of conflicting tendencies, the ob- 
scurity which still veils both the chronological order of Plato's 
writings and the inner history of the man himself is particularly 
tormenting. Certain principal phases, indeed, stand out dis- 
tinctly enough; but where the single divisions and transitions 
lie, what the chief motive of each of the different periods was, 
and what formed for the thinker himself the final conclusion of 
his long life's work — these points, notwithstanding the exhaus- 
tive researches of experts, are still so far from being decisively 
cleared up that it is even now impossible to do without the aid of 
bold conjectures. Such, however, must be avoided in this 
sketch, which accordingly will concern itself chiefly with the 
works in which Plato appears as the forerunner of Idealism. 
For in the Doctrine of Ideas Plato attains his greatest inde- 
pendence, while by it he has exerted his profoundest influence 
upon mankind. 



18 HELLENISM 



(b) The Doctrine o] Ideas 

Plato's aims originate in a deep discontent, indeed in a com- 
plete rupture, with his social environment. Directly it is the 
Athenian democracy that excites his wrath, the behaviour, 
namely, of "the many," who without sincerity or insight, and 
impelled by vacillating desires and by caprice, pass judgment 
upon the weightiest matters, and by the influence of their noisy 
clamour divert those in pursuit of culture from their true aims./ 
But, for the philosophical mind of Plato, the need of his own 
time and country expands into a problem of all lands and all 
ages. Every human undertaking which seeks to be self-suffi- 
cient, and to avoid all responsibility to superior authority, he 
looks upon as petty and necessarily inadequate. Dominated 
by a hollow show of independence, such efforts can never pro- 
duce more than the appearance of virtue and happiness, which 
is rendered repulsive by its self-complacency. So the thinker 
turns his gaze away from men to the great All : from the affairs 
of everyday life, with its envy and hatred, he bids us look up to 
the ever-just order of the universe, which is constantly pre- 
figured to our imagination in the serene expanse of the firmament. 
This relation with the universal order makes our life wider and 
truer, purer and more constant. Hence Plato seeks to rise above 
humanity, and to turn from a social to a cosmic regulation of life. 

But the new life encounters at once an apparently insuperable 
difficulty. The sensible world was seen to be shattered and dis- 
integrated by the work of science; especially was the mutability 
of its forms, the ceaseless flux of all things, far too distinctly 
recognised for life and aspiration to be safely based upon it. 
Hence, if the realm of the senses be the only world, all hope of 
finding a secure foundation for life by starting from the great All 
disappears. But can there not exist, beside it, above it, still 
another world? Socrates's doctrine of thinking and of the 
nature of concepts had, in fact, opened an outlook toward such 
a higher sphere. In concepts, as opposed to fluctuating opinions, 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 19 

was recognised something fixed and universally valid. For 
Socrates, indeed, this universality appeared to be confined to 
the domain of human thought. But Plato, whose whole nature 
turned more toward the cosmic order, was led to take an important 
step forward. The concept, he contends, could not be true, 
unless it extended beyond human thought, and corresponded 
to a reality in things. This view is in harmony with the 
general attitude of the Greek mind, which does not sever man 
from the world and set him over against it, but unites him 
closely to it, interpreting whatever is found existing in human 
thought as a manifestation of things. The lesser life here 
follows the greater, since, according to Plato, the fire of the All 
does not kindle and nourish itself from our fire; rather, mine and 
thine and that of all living beings derive all that they have from 
the former. If, however, there is such a close relation between us 
and things, and the soul derives its possessions only through its 
community of nature with the All, then it is a sure inference 
from the content of the lesser world to that of the greater. Now 
in Plato's mind it is incontestable that, distinguished from 
shifting and uncertain opinions, there is such a thing as knowl- 
edge by permanent concepts: hence he concludes that there 
certainly exists in the All an invisible, immutable world, a realm 
of thought-entities beyond the fleeting world of sense. 

In this manner, Plato comes to the core of his philosophical 
convictions, to the Doctrine of Ideas. The word Idea, origi- 
nally meaning appearance, image, shape, and employed even in 
philosophy before Plato, received and retained from this time 
forth a technical sense; it now denotes in the world of things 
the counterpart of concept, an immutable essence or being, ac- 
cessible only to thought. The Doctrine of Ideas gives stability 
and objectivity to our concepts : a bold logical fantasy here trans- 
fers the latter to the universe without, hypostatising them into 
independent essences standing over against us. The world of 
thought which thus originates becomes for Plato the core of 
all reality, the bearer of the world of sense. 

That is a revolution and a revaluation of the most radical 



20 HELLENISM 

description : the intellectual history of man knows none greater. 
The world of the senses, hitherto the dwelling-place of the mind, 
retreats to a distance, and a world accessible only to thought 
becomes the first, the most certain, the immediately present 
world. The nearness and the knowableness of things are now 
measured by their transparency for thought, not by the strength 
of the sense impression. Since the sensible world, with its 
extension in space, offers an obstinate resistance to being re- 
solved into pure concepts, it remains, with all its tangibility, in 
obscure twilight, while the Ideas enjoy the full light of day. 
With such a transformation, the soul constitutes our essential 
being, the body becomes something extraneous, even foreign. 
Likewise, only spiritual goods should now call forth our efforts. 

But this spirituality acquires a peculiar character owing to 
the unqualified dominion of knowledge. Knowledge alone, that 
eye of the mind which beholds the invisible world, guides us 
away from the illusion of the senses to the realm of reality. 
On its development hangs the independence and inwardness of 
our lives; indeed, in striptness, it must form life's sole content. 

The result is a complete change, but also one which is in 
danger of an extremely one-sided development. Were life 
turned wholly into the spiritual channel, the varied fulness of 
actual existence would be sacrificed to the desire for a com- 
pletely immaterial and immutable being. Plato, however, adds 
the complement of an artistic tendency, as being no less essen- 
tial to a stable and worthy existence ; thus a desire for beauty 
is joined to the desire for knowledge, and the Doctrine of Ideas is 
completed only by the union of the two. The insensible essence 
of things appears also as pure form, the form which, by its 
superior power, binds together the manifold phenomena, and, 
as contrasted with the ephemeral existence of individual things, 
endures as with an eternal youth, and ever afresh exerts its forma- 
tive power over the sensible world. Such a Form Plato finds 
active throughout nature, as well as in the inner life of the soul 
and in the upbuilding of human society; hence we may say 
that the world-wide phenomenon of Form is here for the first 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 21 

time grasped by thought, and also that there is now won a new 
valuation of the world of things. Form is not only constant, it 
is also beautiful and attractive. Accordingly, true being reveals 
itself also as the Good and the Ideal, the world of essence also 
as that of worth. Thus, immediate existence takes on a far 
more congenial aspect. It becomes indeed a copy of the per- 
fect prototype, directing man's thoughts steadily toward the 
latter, and producing an unceasing aspiration. 

This union of truth and beauty implies a firm conviction of 
the universal power of reason. Where the essence of things is 
also beautiful and good, where things are viewed as better in the 
proportion that they partake of being, there the Good has a 
sure preponderance, there it enjoys a sovereign rule over the 
world. No place remains for radical evil, for a paralysing 
original sin : evil tendencies, indeed, may degrade and pervert, 
but they cannot corrupt and ruin. So directed, the eager de- 
sire for life is ennobled and justified, and, in spite of all the 
dangers and conflicts, a happy mood results. 

However much that is problematic may remain in Plato's 
Doctrine of Ideas, the latter discloses a great truth which we 
cannot relinquish. And that is the recognition of the fact that 
there is a realm of truth beyond the likes and dislikes of men; 
that truths are valid, not because of our consent, but inde- 
pendently of it, and in a sphere raised above all human opinion 
and power. Such a conviction is the foundation of the inde- 
pendence of science, and of the secure upbuilding of civilisa- 
tion; only a self-dependent truth can provide laws and norms, 
which elevate human existence because they unite it. But this 
is the central thought of all idealism; hence the latter ever 
remains linked with the name of Plato. 

(c) Life's Goods 

The Platonic view of the conduct of life follows directly from 
the Doctrine of Ideas. Its characteristics may be summarised 
in a few words. All intellectual life rests upon trained insight; 



22 HELLENISM 

without this, it speedily falls a victim to error. But in its actual 
working out, life tends to shape itself according to the artistic 
principles of symmetry and harmony. Thus, the two chief 
tendencies in Greek civilisation, the insistence upon definiteness 
of knowledge and upon comeliness of form, here unite with and 
interpenetrate each other to their mutual furtherance. Accord- 
ingly, Plato represents the highest point reached in the intel- 
lectual labours of his people. At the same time, in his creative 
work he pours forth the whole greatness of his mind, the force 
of a pure and noble and sovereign personality, and so contributes 
something new and individual to the national development : in 
all the search for truth and beauty, his mighty soul is really 
seeking for the good, the ennobling, whatever elevates the 
whole nature. 

Knowledge is the undisputed guide of life. Nothing can be 
accepted as valid which has not passed through the crucible of 
thought. Intelligent insight alone renders virtue genuine, since 
it alone penetrates beyond appearances and emancipates us 
from the hollow conformity of conventional morality; it alone 
establishes virtue in the individual nature of the man, and 
makes his acts really free. For that which is generally called 
virtue, but which in truth is not very different from physical 
accomplishments, is more a product of social environment, 
more a result of custom and habit, than one's own act and 
decision. It is right insight which first makes possible the 
independence of conduct and of the inner nature. 

The beautiful likewise must be baptised in the element of 
thought, in order that it may be purged of the common view 
which is intent on low pleasure. For it is thought that removes 
from the beautiful all that serves merely for sensuous charm and 
gratification; and it is only when freed from what is carnal, only 
when it rises to pure spirituality, that beauty perfects its nature. 
It is here that Winckelmann's words: "like a spirit drawn 
forth from matter through fire," find application. Thus the 
Greek striving for beauty finds expression also in philosophy 
and becomes a power even in the world of scientific thought. 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 23 

Just as beauty is inseparably bound up with the search for 
truth, so it is with the Good. In Plato, philosophy is no mere 
theory, in the later sense of the word, but a rehabilitation of the 
whole being, an elevation of the entire man from appearance to 
truth, an awakening out of the deep sleep that holds ordinary 
life captive, a purification from all sensuousness and its lower 
impulses. The striving toward the world of essential being 
springs from the innermost will of the whole man; it is an 
impulse of veracity, which means breaking with appearance and 
seeking the reality. Truth and goodness meet also in another 
respect, inasmuch as immutable being here counts as the highest 
good, yet such being is revealed only through the search for 
truth. Finally, according to Plato, the Idea of the Good, the 
highest of all Ideas, affords guidance in the search for truth, in 
so far as it teaches us to interpret all that happens in accordance 
with ends, and thus becomes the key to the whole of reality. 

Still closer is the bond between the Good and the Beautiful*. 
it is operative in all the departments of life with a force that 
surmounts all obstacles. Plato's treatment of the beautiful 
shows him to be in close touch with his people, since he gives 
a philosophical version of that classic beauty which had just 
then attained its zenith. The beautiful is here principally of 
the plastic sort ; it requires a distinct separation of the manifold 
elements, strength in the moulding of each, and concentration 
toward a powerful unity of effect. Hence typical classical 
beauty is a beauty of fixed relations and clear proportions, of 
definite and vivid form, and yet one which is full of inner life. 

Beauty of this description the penetrating glance of the thinker 
discerns beneath the sombre appearance of things, both in the 
great world and in the sphere of human activity; limits and 
order, symmetry and harmony, are everywhere revealed to him. 
So, from out the deep vault of the heavens, the fixed constancy 
of the stars, notwithstanding their ceaseless movements ; so from 
out the inner mechanism of nature, the formation of everything 
in accordance with strict mathematical relations. 

But what thus goes on in the great world with far-reaching and 



24 HELLENISM 

certain effect becomes in human life a problem to be wrought 
out by action : the most important of all harmonics is the harmony 
of life, of which the Hellenic nature alone seems to be capable. 
Our being, indeed, with its multitude of impulses, is necessarily 
forced into metes and bounds. But the full realisation of sym- 
metry in the details of life requires our personal initiative, under 
the guidance of right insight. The problem is, with the help of 
such insight, to dispel the original confusion, to develop all 
our native endowments, to prevent them from encroaching upon 
one another, and finally to unite all attainments into a well- 
balanced life-work. Here everything limitless and indefinite is 
excluded, all movement has a fixed goal, even efficiency may not 
be arbitrarily increased. When each performs his individual 
task, the whole fares the best, life becomes beautiful in itself and 
can produce nothing but happiness. Such a conviction implies 
its own ideal of education. A man should not train himself for 
everything, and undertake everything. Rather let each choose 
some single aim, and dedicate to that his whole strength. It is 
far better to do one thing well than many things indifferently. 
In other words, it is an aristocratic ideal in harsh and conscious 
opposition to the democratic one of an education of all for every- 
thing, that is, a training as many-sided and uniform for every- 
body as possible. 

Inasmuch as the harmony of life thus virtually becomes our 
own creation, by incorporating in it our volition, our disposition, 
it develops into an ethical product, into the virtue of justice. 
For justice consists precisely in this, to perform one's own task 
and to render to every one his due; instead of encroaching upon 
another's sphere, to devote one's self wholly to the work which 
nature and fortune have assigned to one. Accordingly, justice 
is nothing other than the harmony of life incorporated into one's 
own volition. As such, it becomes for Plato, in common with 
the Greek people, the central conception of the moral life, the all- 
inclusive virtue. Beyond the human sphere, moreover, it is 
active as the moral order of the universe. In the end, we fare 
according to our conduct; if not in this life, then certainly in 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 25 

another, the good done must receive its reward, and the evil its 
punishment. 

If, accordingly, virtue consists in the vitalising and harmo- 
nious ordering of one's own being, it becomes wholly self- 
dependent; and the effort to attain virtue becomes a ceaseless 
occupation of the man with his own inner life, and consequently 
a liberation from all the oppression of social surroundings. 
The prescriptions of custom had a peculiar power over the 
southern nations; but since the time of Plato there is to be 
found even there in all sovereign personalties the most strenuous 
resistance to its pressure. With the spiritualising of the aim, 
the chief end became, not gratifying the expectations of other 
men, but meeting the demands of one's own ideals; not the 
appearing, but the being, good. Just as this turning to the inner 
nature first made life independent and honest, so it promised an 
incomparably more exalted happiness, a purer joy. The forceful 
and virile nature of Plato is not the one to renounce happiness; 
yet Plato does not find it, as do the masses, in outward events 
and successes. Rather, seeking it in activity itself enables him to 
undertake a great life-work in developing the inner nature. 
What is required is first to fill the entire circuit of life's activities 
with eager aspiration, and then to unite all into a harmony. 
On the result depends the success or failure of life, and also our 
happiness or unhappiness. For, according to Plato, whatever 
harmony or discord there is in life will be clearly perceived and 
actually felt, will be felt just as it exists, without illusion. Hence 
the actual state of the soul is truthfully reflected in joy or sorrow ; 
justice with its harmony yields blessedness, a form of happiness 
exalted far above all other kinds; viciousness, on the other hand, 
with its discord, its disruption and hostility toward our real 
nature, produces unbearable suffering. 

This inseparable connection between active virtue and happi- 
ness forms the highest development of the wisdom of an active 
and happy race: such is the ideal for which Greek philosophy 
fought to the last. According to this conviction, happiness 
forms the natural consequence, but not the motive of action; 



26 HELLENISM 

where the good has its worth in itself, in its own inner beauty, 
the perception of which always delights and fascinates, there all 
petty concern about rewards vanishes. To give happiness this 
inner foundation means to break the power of destiny over men. 
All the privations and antagonisms of outward circumstances 
cannot alter the condition of soul created by the soul's own act; 
its superiority and self-sufficiency are only strengthened and 
made more obvious by the contrast. Possessed of all the favour 
of fortune, the bad man remains miserable; indeed, prosperity 
renders him only the more wretched, since evil flourishes more 
rankly in a rich soil: but to the good man, the inner splendour 
of his life is first fully revealed in the presence of obstacles and 
suffering. Holding such convictions, Plato draws an impressive 
picture of the suffering just man, who is pursued until his death by 
the apparent injustice that afflicts him, but whose inner nobility 
shines with transcendent lustre in the midst of trial — a picture 
which in its outward approach to Christian ideas only renders 
more obvious the inner divergence between the two worlds. 

(d) Asceticism and the Transfiguration of the World 

Absolutely essential to the Platonic view was the separation 
between the realm of truth, as that of pure forms, and the realm 
of immediate existence. Between these there is an impassable 
gulf; historical research has failed to lessen the separation. 
The more energetically Plato insists that spiritual goods have 
their worth within themselves, and that that worth is incompar- 
able, the more certain he becomes that they constitute a realm 
of their own opposed to a world of lesser truth and completeness. 
What consequences for human conduct has such a rigorous 
separation of the ideal from the actual ? Can conduct embrace 
both, or should it be directed exclusively toward the ideal? 
The latter course is unconditionally enjoined by Plato. For 
why should we divide our energies, when the world of real being 
demands our unreserved devotion ? why concern ourselves with 
the transitory, when the way to the eternal stands open? why 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 27 

linger in obscure twilight amid shadowy reflections, when we 
may gaze upon the full pure light of the archetypes ? Plato is 
impelled in this direction by his eager longing for essential being : 
measured by the constancy and simplicity of reality, the sense- 
world, with its myriad shifting forms, sinks into a deceptive 
appearance. Hence it becomes the problem of problems to free 
oneself wholly from this illusion, and to dedicate all love, all 
strength, and all effort to immutable being. In this manner 
Plato develops a type of asceticism which is individual and 
distinctive. 

Viewed from this elevation, the worthlessness and falsity of 
the life that immediately surrounds us is obvious. It is not so 
much that it is defective in detail, as that it fails as a whole, and 
particularly as to its basis. Here where sensuousness draws 
everything down to its own level, there is no such thing as pure 
happiness; everything noble is distorted and perverted, all 
effort is directed to the appearance and not to the thing itself, 
while the ceaseless change of phenomena yields at no point a 
lasting good. Into the dark cave of sensuousness, to which we 
are here banished, the great and luminous world of truth throws 
but faint and fleeting images. If thought opens to us a way of 
escape from such bondage, ought we not joyfully to enter upon it ? 
ought we not courageously to cast off every tie that binds us to 
the realm of shadows? But everything that is there prized as a 
good holds us fast — beauty, riches, strength of body, distin- 
guished connections; hence the real friend of truth must inwardly 
renounce even these. To the soul the body is a prison, indeed 
a grave. It can rescue itself only by putting away all pleasure 
and desire, pain and fear. For these passions weld it to the 
body, and cause it to mistake the world of sense-appearance 
for the true world. Yet the soul cannot free itself from the pas- 
sions, so long as the events of everyday life possess the slightest 
value for it, for then they rule it; consequently it must rise to 
complete indifference to them, and find happiness exclusively in 
intellectual activity, i. e., in the knowledge of true being. The 
blows of fortune glance from a wise and brave soul that partici- 



28 HELLENISM 

pates in immutable goods. "It is best to remain composed and 
not to be excited in the presence of misfortunes, inasmuch as 
neither in such matters are good and evil easily discerned, nor 
does he who takes disaster hard gain anything thereby, nor in 
general does anything in human affairs merit great eagerness." 
And we ought not to grieve like women over the calamities of 
others, but manfully to help the sick and set the fallen upon 
his feet. Only he attains a complete victory who leaves the 
whole life of sensation behind him, and lifts himself heroically 
above the world of joys and sorrows. With such a release of 
life from the thraldom of sensuous existence, death loses all its 
terrors; it becomes an "escape from all error and unreason and 
fear and wild passion and all other human ills." To the disem- 
bodied soul alone is the full truth revealed, for only what is pure 
may come into contact with the pure. Thus the escape from the 
earthly, the preparation for death, becomes the chief problem of 
philosophy; it now means the awaking out of dazed dreaming 
into perfect clearness, a return from a strange land to one's home. 

Here we have asceticism in the full sense of the word. There 
remains, indeed, a wide divergence between the Platonic and the 
mediaeval asceticism. It is only the sensuous and merely human 
existence, not the world in general, that is surrendered; and the 
eternal being that is the object of striving is not located in the 
distant Beyond as an object of faith and hope, but it surrounds 
the soul of kindred nature even in this life with an immediate 
presence; also it does not appear as the gracious gift of a higher 
power, but as a result of one's own activity, as a product of human 
freedom. 

But even with such an interpretation, the break with the whole 
immediate condition of mankind remains. For with the rejec- 
tion of all the pains and joys, all the cares and problems of hu- 
manity, existence threatens to lose all living content, the infinite 
wealth of being to sink into the abyss of a formless eternity. 

In such asceticism as this, we have the true Plato and the con- 
sistent Plato, but by no means the whole Plato. For the ascetic 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 29 

tendency in Plato underwent a considerable modification, in 
fact it suffered a complete reaction, as has happened indeed with 
all exponents of asceticism who, in their concern for the individ- 
ual, did not forget the claims of humanity in general. The 
individual thinker, it is true, may cut himself off from the sen- 
suous world, but mankind as a whole cannot follow him: thus 
regard for the weaker brethren would have sufficed of itself to 
lead Plato back to the sensuous world. Hence a concession 
which, in the Orient, and often even on Christian soil, was 
only a reluctant one, found Plato predisposed in its favour. As 
a Greek, and as the friend, indeed the discoverer, of beauty, so 
far as theoretical knowledge is concerned, he is bound by a 
thousand ties to the actual world; and that fact compels him to 
search out the good in the sensuous also, and to rejoice in it. 

In particular, an effort peculiar to Plato, to insert an interme- 
diate link between the spiritual and the sensuous, between reality 
and appearance, between the eternal and the transitory, oper- 
ates to exalt the sensuous world, and so to preserve life from dis- 
ruption. That is, the soul appears as a mediation between the 
spirit and the sensuous nature, in that it receives the eternal 
truths from the former, but lives its life in the latter; within the 
soul itself, strenuous effort mediates between the intellectual 
faculties and the senses, and, in cognition, correct opinion medi- 
ates between knowledge and ignorance. Similarly, in the theo- 
ries of the state and of nature, opposites are connected by inter- 
mediate links, and all the phenomena arranged in a graded 
series. Finally, the beautiful becomes a connecting link be- 
tween pure spirit and the sensuous world, inasmuch as order, 
proportion, and harmony dominate both worlds, and give also 
to the latter a*share in divinity. 

With Plato, however, the union of higher and lower results 
not only from an impartation from above, but also from the 
direct aspiration of the sensuous and human toward the divine. 
Throughout the whole finite world there stirs the longing for 
some share in the good and the eternal, in order that the finite 
itself may become imperishable. Love, or Eros, is nought but 



30 HELLENISM 

such a striving for immortality. This longing attains full devel- 
opment only in the pursuit of knowledge, which leads to a per- 
fect union with the true and the eternal. Yet it pervades the 
whole universe in an ascending progress, and the contemplation 
of the thinker joyfully traces this mounting stairway of love. 

Such a transformation increases the significance of the imme- 
diate world and augments the wealth of human life. Knowledge 
no longer forms its exclusive content, but only the dominating 
height which sheds forth light and reason in all directions. But 
the lower sphere acquires worth as being an indispensable step 
toward that height; for our eyes can accustom themselves but 
gradually to the light of the Ideas. Moreover, the Idea of jus- 
tice and harmony uplifts the lower sphere by making it a part of 
the whole, and by setting it a special task whose accomplishment 
becomes essential to the completion of the whole work, both in 
the human soul and in the state. That sphere becomes evil only 
when the order is reversed, and the higher supplanted; hence, 
even the sensuous is no longer as such to be condemned, but only 
in its excess and when it subjugates the mind. 

To this there corresponds a different personal attitude toward 
human things; the thinker cannot now look coldly down upon 
them from a distant height. Rather he shares feelingly in the 
common lot: all good becomes his joy, all evil his pain. Hence 
he is impelled with a mighty force toward the furtherance of the 
good and the combating of evil. The ascetic thinker becomes a 
bold and passionate reformer; he devises vast plans for the 
radical amelioration of human conditions, and does not shrink 
from abrupt changes. Instead of the earlier suppression of the 
emotions, we are now told that without a noble anger nothing 
excellent can be accomplished. Plato here appears as an ardent 
champion, whom the battle with its excitement stirs to joyful 
enthusiasm, only the more since, in his view, the Deity ever 
leads the combat. 

Accordingly, Platonism embraces at once asceticism and a 
transfiguration of the world. But the latter, too, is a consequence 
of the world of Ideas; for even the reason in the immediate world 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 31 

is descended from the Ideas. So, in spite of the cleavage, life 
remains directed toward one chief goal : in both worlds, all good 
is spiritual in nature, all reason derived from right insight. 
That, however, everything has not been reconciled, that in the 
common stream there remain conflicting currents, is indicated, 
not to mention other points, by the discrepant treatment of the 
emotions. But perhaps the blame for the contradiction should 
not fall upon Plato alone; perhaps there reside in human life 
in general impulses toward opposite goals. Can we attain the 
independence and original purity of intellectual life without 
breaking away from experience? Can we develop and perfect 
it without returning to experience? However that may be, it 
has not been those thinkers who have hastily seized upon a sim- 
ple unity and fortified their position against all possible contra- 
dictions who have exerted the profoundest influence, but those 
who have allowed the different tendencies to conflict strongly 
with one another and to expend themselves fully : by this means 
they have started a self-accelerating movement, an inner forward 
impulse of life. Who would deny that such has been the case 
with Plato? 

(e) The View of Human Life as a Whole 

All the principal aspects of Plato's thought coalesce in his 
comprehensive view of human existence. The chief antithesis 
of the two worlds applies also to man, who consists of body and 
soul, or rather appears to do so. In truth, the soul alone con- 
stitutes the self, to which the body is only externally appended. 
The soul shares in the world of eternal being and pure beauty, 
while the body draws us down to the sensuous realm, and sub- 
jects us to its vicissitudes. So conceived, the immortality of the 
soul is beyond all doubt. If the essence of life lies beyond all 
temporal change and all relation to surroundings, and immu- 
tability is the chief characteristic of spiritual existence, then must 
the soul, each individual soul, belong to the eternal elements of 
reality. It never came into being, and cannot pass away. Its 



32 HELLENISM 

connection with the body appears as a mere episode in its life, 
indeed as the result of guilt, of an "intellectual Fall" (Rohde); 
and the serious work of life is designed to free it from the con- 
sequences of this guilt, and finally to bring it, although after 
manifold transmigrations, back to the invisible world. 

Plato's powerful development of these convictions has ex- 
erted the profoundest influence upon mankind. It was not the 
average intelligence of his surroundings that provided him with 
a belief in the immortality of the soul. For the old idea of a 
shadowy existence of souls in Hades — fundamentally different 
from that of a true immortality — still held sway over men's 
minds: even for a Socrates immortality was a moot question. 
True, in. smaller religious circles, belief in immortality had 
taken, root, but rather as a subjective conviction than as part of 
a comprehensive system of thought. Plato was the first to make 
the belief the central point in a view of the world, and to con- 
nect it with the whole of human striving. 

The principal direction of human effort is also herewith deter- 
mined. For all thought is now concentrated upon the inner 
state of man, upon the liberation and purifying of the immortal 
soul. Life attains in fact a thoroughly spiritual character; and 
the pursuit of truth demands our utmost exertion only the more 
because the material world encompasses us with the deceptive 
appearance of truth, and our souls are as if covered up and 
buried, and our faculty of knowledge weakened and dimmed, 
by the sensuous. So a complete inversion of the ordinary view 
is necessary: in an abrupt break with his first state, let man 
turn his spiritual eye and even his whole being away from gloomy 
darkness to the light of truth. The movement of life, like all 
training and education, does not develop from mere experience; 
nor does progress arise from the mere contact of inner and outer; 
rather, active effort is a recollection of the true nature of the 
mind > a return to the real, ever-present, merely obscured nature. 
For the soul must have brought with it into this life a spiritual 
capital, which was to abide as an imperishable possession. 
Hence the well-known doctrine of reminiscence and. innate 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 33 

(better, native) Ideas, which, notwithstanding all that is prob- 
lematic in its nearer definition, is unassailable in the funda- 
mental conception that all true living is an unfolding of one's 
own being, and that the external world can only arouse, but not 
create, mental activity and particularly knowledge. The at- 
tempt to impart genuine insight and virtue by means of the in- 
fluence of custom and practice Plato likens to the effort to con- 
fer sight upon the blind externally. All knowledge in the end is 
drawn, not from experience, but from the eternal nature of the 
mind. "Individual things are specimens which remind us of 
the abstract concepts, but they are not the reality to which those 
concepts refer." (Zeller.) 

Intimately connected with this view of life's problem are cer- 
tain convictions regarding the actual conduct of life. Individ- 
uals there are, in Plato's belief, who really devote themselves to 
true being; genuine virtue — such, in fact, is the common asser- 
tion of the Greek thinkers — really exists among men. But such 
individuals constitute the rare exceptions; the great majority 
cling to the world of illusion, and mistake the nature of the good. 
The contrast between sterling and worthless men is here felt 
more acutely than are their common problems and common 
destiny; in fact, a conspicuous separation of the noble from the 
vulgar appears indispensable to the maintenance of the moral 
order. But when it is said that the multitude, because of its pro- 
pensity for sensuous enjoyment, approaches the manner of life 
of animals, while the sage in his contemplation of the eternal 
world leads a life akin to the divine, all ties between them 
threaten to dissolve, and mankind to be separated into two com- 
pletely unrelated classes. And, indeed, permanently so. For 
here every sort of faith in an intellectual and moral progress is 
wanting. As in the universe, so also in human life, the relation 
of good and evil is regarded as in the main unalterable. The 
sensuous, the source of all the hindrance, is abiding; and the 
positive opposition between the sensuous and the spiritual, be- 
tween the fleeting world of change and immutable being, per- 
mits of no faith in any sort of real progress. But that does not 



34 HELLENISM 

mean doing away with all movement and readjustment in 
human affairs. Plato accounts for these, in agreement with older 
thinkers, by the assumption of cycles, great world-epochs, 
which were first known to astronomy. After completing their 
circuit, things come round again to the starting-point, and then 
repeat the same course ad infinitum: thus historical movement is 
resolved into an endless series of cycles having like contents. 
And this order amid change is presented as a picture of eternity. 
Hence here we have no historical development with its hopes 
and prospects; here there is no appeal from the evils of the 
present to a better future. 

Accordingly, the Platonic view of the conduct of life is defi- 
cient in a number of motives which the modern man regards as 
indispensable. On the other hand, many cares and doubts are 
unknown to it; and the spiritual nature of man, his kinship 
with the Deity, here offers an abundant compensation for all 
the defects of average existence. The virtuous man can escape 
from the dim twilight of human relations, and fill his soul with 
the pure light. If he puts forth his utmost effort, the high aim 
is indeed attainable. For Plato recognises no impassable gulf 
between the striving mind and the truth, no erring on the part of 
him who earnestly seeks: the thinking that follows the right 
method is infallible. Just as the innermost secrets of things can 
be penetrated by a powerful and courageous act of thought, so 
such thinking exercises control over all conduct and feeling. 
True knowledge makes the whole life rational; there is no radi- 
cal evil which could prevent such progress. So each moment 
an inspiring present may be won, and life be lifted above all the 
defects of the sensuous sphere to a state of stability and gladness. 
Activity is ever the source of well-being; but since all human 
initiative is firmly rooted in the kinship of our nature with eter- 
nal being and perfect beauty, such activity, notwithstanding its 
heroic uplift, engenders no stormy excitement nor confusing 
unrest. 

Let us now pursue these convictions in their application to the 
various departments of life. ^ 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 35 

(f ) The Several Departments of Life 
(a) RELIGION 

Plato's nature is deeply religious in the sense that the de- 
pendence of man upon the universe, which pervades all his 
work, both finds full recognition in his positive convictions and 
appears transmuted into the intimacy of feeling. His thought 
is permeated with the belief that a "kingly mind" rules the 
universe. Even his diction, which is replete with expressions 
borrowed from religion and worship, shows how profoundly he 
feels that he is surrounded by the working of a divine power. 
But the religion of Plato remains to the end the religion of a 
Greek thinker; and between this and the Christian religion 
there exists a wide chasm. For to the Greek, religion is not a 
deliverance from direst extremity, not the restitution of the dis- 
turbed, even destroyed, union with the Deity, not the consola- 
tion of the helpless and the weak. Rather, to him, the secure 
relationship with the divine which exists by nature is not so 
shattered by waywardness that it cannot be restored by human 
agency at any moment. Furthermore, religion is here so iden- 
tified with every form of activity that it enhances the importance 
of human life and gives grandeur to all its relations. The con- 
sciousness of being protected and supported in the battle of life 
by the Deity, fills the mind of the sage with deep piety. Yet 
this religion does not create a world of its own, and accordingly 
does not form any special sphere opposed to ordinary life. 
Likewise, it does not give rise to a spiritual community, or any- 
thing that could be called a personal relationship; and no up- 
lifting and inner renewal of life results from the exercise of the 
divine sway. 

Consequently no need is felt of a special historical revela- 
tion, in distinction from the general manifestation of the 
divine in the universe and in human nature. Just as little 
is there any need felt for a religious doctrine, a theology; 



36 HELLENISM 

Greek piety accords perfectly with a distinct consciousness of 
the great distance between God and man. The immutable 
and pure must not be drawn into the impure sphere of sen- 
suous change; only by means of intermediate steps can it com- 
municate itself to the lower realm; God does not mingle with 
men. Hence Plato's saying: "God, the father and creator of 
the universe, is difficult to find, and, when found, impossible to 
impart to all." 

This religion of active, healthy, strong men follows, in its 
further development, the twofold direction of Plato's work. 
To the metaphysician, the search for truth is itself the true 
religion. God means the absolutely immutable and simple 
Being, from whom all unchangeableness and simplicity, but 
also all truth, are derived: He is the measure of all things. 
It is when man turns from the broken reflection to the pure 
source of all light, that his life is guided from appearance to 
truth. 

In the other direction, God is the ideal of moral perfection, 
the completely just and good Spirit. To become like God 
means to be intelligently pious and just; piety, however, is 
nothing else than justice toward the Deity, the fulfilment of the 
whole obligation due to the Godhead. The central point of 
this conviction is the conception of the moral order of the world, 
of a full retribution for good and evil. But, while thus adopting 
the fundamental conception of the Greek religion, Plato broad- 
ens and deepens it. In the opinion of the people, retribution 
was to be expected in this world; if it did not fall upon the indi- 
vidual, it would fall upon his house. Plato, too, looked for jus- 
tice in this life; but its complete triumph he believed would 
come only in the Beyond. He developed the conception of a 
judgment after death, which would be a judgment of the soul in 
its nakedness, and would be incorruptible in its verdict; and 
the marvellous power of his delineation has engraved this picture 
upon the imagination of mankind for all time. But it is not 
Plato's intention to direct the thoughts of men mainly beyond 
the grave. Of the dead, we ought to think that they have passed 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 37 

away, after their work is ended and their mission fulfilled; but 
for ourselves we must give heed to the present. 

The Platonic justice never passes into severity; it is tem- 
pered with mercy. Nevertheless, it always stands before love, 
and the moral realm here appears as a world-state ruled by the 
Deity — a view which profoundly influenced later times, includ- 
ing Christianity. 

That Plato in this particular does not abandon so much as 
develop the popular belief is of a piece with that other fact that, 
notwithstanding his energetic defence of a unity dominating the 
world, he does not surrender the plurality of divine forces, but, 
by teaching the immanence of the life of nature, transplants the 
mythological conception to the soil of philosophy. But wher- 
ever the popular views contradict the purified notions of phil- 
osophy, Plato does not shrink from making vigorous protest, 
nor even from open hostility. He rejects all that is ignoble and 
unworthy in the customary representations of the gods; he re- 
jects with even greater indignation a form of worship which, 
instead of inculcating an approach to the Deity by means of 
good deeds and moral worth, teaches the purchase of His 
favour by outward observances, sacrifices, and the like, and 
thus shamefully degrades religion to the level of a traffic. Only 
small men, only weaklings, will make use of such means; in 
reality it is the man of action who may be certain of the divine 
help : the thought of the Deity, which is a terror to the evil- 
doer fills the former with glad anticipations. 

08) THE STATE 

Plato's ascetic tendency implies a decidedly negative attitude 
toward the state. Where the immediate world is a thing of 
change and illusion, where, moreover, a mind immersed in in- 
tellectual pursuits finds itself out of sympathy with its social 
surroundings, there political life can hardly appear as an at- 
tractive field for co-operation. None the less, the state strongly 
attracts Plato; and the fact bears ample testimony to the force 



38 HELLENISM 

with which he is recalled from the world of abstract thought to 
an active interest in the community. In reality, political theory 
occupies a large place in Plato's world of thought; and the prin- 
cipal stages in his inner development are reflected in its suc- 
cessive ideals. 

The latest view, which is contained in "The Laws," may here 
be disregarded, since, notwithstanding the wisdom of many 
individual utterances, it possesses too little completeness. On 
the other hand, the two views of the state which "The Republic" 
presents must be considered. 

In the first, we find Plato an energetic reformer of the Greek 
state, along the line of an enlargement of the Socratic doctrine. 
The state is treated — with a sustained analogy to the individual 
soul — as exhibiting the ideal of justice writ large. To this end, 
all its affairs, and particularly education, should be regulated 
in strict accordance with the laws of ethics; the principal func- 
tions of society should be definitely distinguished, in conformity 
with the stages of soul life, and represented by the activity of 
fixed classes; each individual should perform his special task 
with whole-souled devotion, yet all should work together under 
the reign of intelligence toward one harmonious result. In 
order not to be drawn away from the service of the common 
end by private interests, the higher classes must relinquish 
private property and family ties; hence communism on eth- 
ical, not economic, grounds forms the copestone of the Platonic 
theory. 

Thus the state becomes an ethical ideal, an empire of virtue 
based upon insight. Drawn in bold lines, this picture appears 
at first to present a sharp contrast to reality; closer inspection, 
however, reveals a number of threads of connection between 
the daring speculations of the thinker and actual Greek condi- 
tions. For at this time Plato still believed in the possibility of 
great reforms in the institutions of Greece. 

The later sketch of the state surrenders this hope. The 
longing for the realm of immutable being has in the end so 
estranged the thinker from the conditions of human existence 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 39 

that he looks back upon life as he might upon a gloomy cavern 
seen from a lofty elevation. If, nevertheless, he returns thither, 
he does so, not to please himself, but for the sake of the breth- 
ren, and less in the hope of any result than in order even there 
to proclaim the eternal truths. The state which originates 
from this attitude is above all an institution for the preparation 
of men for the realm of eternal truth; here the task is, by an 
orderly ascent, gradually to free the soul from the sensuous, and 
win it over to the supersensuous; thus the whole of life be- 
comes a stern education, a spiritual purification; and this edu- 
cation gradually raises man to a world in the presence of which 
all political life vanishes. By means of the state itself there 
results an emancipation from the sphere to which the state 
belongs. 

Thus the two views are not only different but incompatible. 
Yet, in spite of the disagreement, there are important features 
which are common to both, and which give to the Platonic state 
a unity of character. In both, the state is man magnified; all 
authority rests with superior intelligence; spiritual and moral 
goods are the principal content of the life of the state; the indi- 
vidual is everywhere subordinated to the whole. Without an 
elimination of individual initiative and the establishment of 
irrevocable ordinances, the state cannot enter into the service of 
reason. But this permanence of conditions and strict subordi- 
nation of the individual Plato demands at the same moment 
that he raises human personality high above the state, subjects 
traditional conditions to a searching criticism, and devises the 
boldest schemes for complete reconstruction. Accordingly, he 
demands for the philosopher a privilege which he denies to the 
rest of mankind : the state ought to receive a content free from 
all subjective opinion, yet it must receive it through the mental 
labour of the sovereign personality. This contradiction alone 
was sufficient to prevent Plato's doctrine from exercising the 
slightest contemporary influence: such valuable suggestions 
and fruitful seeds as it contained were forced to await for their 
appreciation entirely different conditions. 



4 o HELLENISM 



(7) ART 

Plato's labours on behalf of art and of the state illustrate the 
irony of fate. He expended upon the state, a subject foreign to 
his innermost nature, an incalculable amount of trouble, while 
art, to which the deepest chords of his being responded, failed 
of an adequate theoretical consideration. In fact, the very 
thinker who, more than any other, was an artist in his thinking, 
heaped accusation after accusation upon art. The metaphysical 
and ethical sides of his nature conspired against the artistic. 
As, in his view, a mere imitation of the sensuous, a copy of the 
copy, art retreats to the farthest distance from essential being. 
The varied and changing forms for which art, particularly the 
drama, demands our sympathetic interest, are only a hindrance, 
since one's own individual role in life offers quite enough for 
consideration. Offensive also is the impure content of the poetry 
dominated by mythological ideas; finally, the feverish excite- 
ment of the emotional life, which Plato sees taking possession of 
the art of his time, is highly objectionable. In all this we miss 
a proper aesthetic valuation of art: such an estimate was ren- 
dered peculiarly difficult for a Greek thinker by the intimate 
connection of art with the ethical and religious life of the nation. 
Hence there followed a severe conflict; in spite of personal sym- 
pathy, whatever endangered the moral welfare had to go. 
Entire species of art, such as the drama, are rejected without 
qualification; what remains must conform unconditionally to 
the requirements of morals. In this conflict between ethical 
and aesthetic interests, morals win an unqualified victory. Still, 
for Plato, the subordination of art does not mean any deprecia- 
tion of beauty. For him, there is a way from the evils of human 
conduct to the beauty of the universe. And, just as in the 
cosmos, the good allies itself with beauty, with a severe and 
chaste beauty, so also the search for truth, the work of science, 
receives an artistic form. In other words, the structure of sci- 
ence itself becomes the highest and truest work of art. 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 41 



(S) SCIENCE 

Science as understood by Plato is radically different from 
modern science. It does not seek for the minutest elements in 
order to construct the real world out of their combination; 
rather, it embraces all phenomena from the first in a single 
view; explanation proceeds from the greater to the less, from 
the whole to the part; synthesis governs analysis. "To see 
things together," to recognise relationships — that is for Plato 
the chief characteristic of the philosopher, whose peculiar 
greatness lies in creative intuition. 

Similarly, Platonic science is not, like modern science, a 
translation of existence into terms of a gradual evolution, an 
explanation of being by change; on the contrary, its aim is to 
find eternal being amid fleeting change, a perfectly ordered 
cosmos amid the chaos of the phenomenal world. But, finding 
the essence is not so much a matter of long and tedious labour 
as it is an act of insight; mental power transports us to the 
realm of truth at a stroke. Here science is free from the gnawing 
doubt that otherwise attacks it at the very root. Only thus can 
it provide a support to life and fill it with a joyful confidence. 

In this view of knowledge, all the emphasis falls upon the 
fundamental questions, and the subordinate sciences are re- 
garded merely as preliminaries to philosophy. Only mathe- 
matics, as the science which conducts us from the sensuous to 
the supersensuous, receives full recognition. On the other 
hand, all concern with the varied content of the sensible world 
appears of small worth, and any assertion regarding it merely as 
a more or less plausible assumption. Moreover, all interpreta- 
tion of nature proceeds from the soul, which is also the ground 
of all motion in the universe. By the vigorous development of 
such convictions, Plato did serious injury to the pursuit of natu- 
ral science: a network of subjective notions here overspread the 
actual world, and prevented an unbiassed estimate of things in 
their natural relations; as a consequence, the important begin- 



42 HELLENISM 

nings of an exact knowledge of nature contained in the pre- 
Socratic philosophy were lost for more than two thousand 
years. The strong point in Plato's achievement lies in the pure 
philosophy of concepts, the dialectic, which accepts nothing 
from without, and even gives a full justification of its own 
bases. Here there is consummated a triumphant emancipation 
of thought from all material bonds; while a complete confidence 
of the mind in its own faculties is taught by example. When 
Plato calls the dialectic method "the highest gift of the gods, 
and the true Promethean fire," such an estimate possesses for 
him the fullest personal truth. 

(g) Retrospect 

The most important and most fruitful in results of all Plato's 
achievements is undoubtedly the basing of human activity and 
the whole structure of civilisation upon theoretical knowledge: 
it meant a new inner stability of life and a substantial elevation 
of our existence. But we saw that the granting of such promi- 
nence to theoretical knowledge by no means entailed the dwarf- 
ing of the remaining forms of man's activity; on the contrary, 
all the chief directions of human labour were permitted to develop 
without obstruction and mutually to strengthen and further one 
another. As the various aspects of Plato's mind were bound to- 
gether by the powerful, broad personality of the man, so all the 
diverging tendencies of his own life inevitably again converged 
and united themselves into a single life-work. In later times, 
indeed, the diverging currents of man's activity flowed further 
apart, and forbade so complete a reunion. Yet this subsequent 
tendency toward specialisation makes the life and labour of Plato 
only the more valuable. For the latter present vividly to our 
minds that unity of a many-sided activity which he attained, 
and which even we may not surrender, although now it rises 
before us only as a remote ideal. So, in general, antiquity re- 
garded many aims as speedily attainable, which in the course 
of history have ever displayed new complications and ever re- 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 43 

ceded further from us : should we, therefore, look upon them as 
worthless ? 

Plato represents the zenith of the intellectual development of 
Greece. Its two chief tendencies, the desire for knowledge and 
the sense for form, the scientific and the artistic impulses, found 
in him their most intimate union and most fruitful mutual inter- 
action. His view of life brought the characteristic Greek ideal- 
ism to its most clearly defined expression. Its peculiar type 
consists in the inextricable interweaving of these convictions: that 
the indomitable work of thought discloses a new world of true 
being and genuine happiness, that this world is in ceaseless con- 
flict with the actual world and can never fully overcome its re- 
sistance, that, however, in its own inexhaustible life it remains 
superior to all assaults, and by its immutable truth and beauty 
it lifts men securely above the sphere of strife and suffering. 
The kinship of this view of life with that later developed by 
Christianity is as unmistakable as is their wide divergence within 
the same limits. In both, the aim is to gain a higher world; but 
in Plato true insight is the way thither, in Christianity purity of 
heart; in both, the Deity is at work in human affairs; but with 
Plato the divine is operative equally at all times and in all 
places, in nature as well as among men, while Christianity 
shows the divine revelation as culminating at a single point in 
human history, and hence arrives at the doctrine of an historical 
development, a thing unknown to Plato, and something which 
he must necessarily have rejected. 

The inexhaustible influence of the great idealist of Greece is 
due quite as much to the spontaneous life animating all his 
work as to the diverse tendencies which freely unfold and cul- 
minate in him. Throughout the whole course of history Plato's 
philosophy has acted as a powerful stimulus to men's minds, re- 
sisting every tendency of thought to relapse into the formal and 
the pedantic, and continually turning the gaze away from the 
petty toward the great, and away from the limited and the 
bounded toward the broad and the free. Moreover, out of the 



44 HELLENISM 

abundance of his riches Plato has offered diverse things to di- 
verse epochs. In later antiquity, he became the protagonist of 
those who sought to satisfy by means of philosophy the growing 
religious longing: he was recognised as the priestly herald of the 
true wisdom, which freed men from the beguiling illusion of the 
senses and guided their thoughts back to the eternal home. 
Yet the same philosopher, with his many-sided life, his artistic 
charm, and his youthful joy in beauty, became the favourite 
thinker of the Renaissance: reverence for him was in that age 
the bond of union between the greatest masters. And do not 
such names as Winckelmann, Schleiermacher, and Boeckh 
show how far Plato's influence extends into our own time? 
Thus, his life-work has woven a golden cord about the ages, and 
the saying of the later Greek philosopher, "The Platonic grace 
and charm are forever new," has perfect truth even to-day. 

III. ARISTOTLE 

(a) General Characteristics 

Aristotle's (384-322) view of life was determined by quite 
other conditions of fortune and personal character. The son of 
a Macedonian court physician, he was not involved by birth 
and education in the inner conflicts of Greek life, as was Plato, 
nor was he driven by indignation at the sordidness of actual 
conditions into antagonism to them; rather he came from the 
borders of the Greek world to its centre, impelled by the sole 
desire to appropriate the accumulated riches of a fully matured 
civilisation. Furthermore, he found there an entirely different 
state of things than did the reformer Plato. The intellectual 
ferment, the ferverish excitement, the brilliant creative work 
of the fifth century were long past. The time had come for 
calm, deliberate research; and it was to this work of research 
that Aristotle gave himself, and his labours represent its culmina- 
tion. Thoroughly Greek in character and disposition, he was 
yet far enough removed from the turmoil of daily life to survey 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 45 

with impartiality the total achievement of the Greek people, and 
to find in his joy in this employment consolation for the evils of 
the time. 

At the first view, the sober prose of the Aristotelian narrative, 
the simple objectivity of his method, and the severe repression 
of all personal feeling might easily create the impression that 
the thinker had already outgrown the associations of classical 
antiquity, and belonged to the learned period of Hellenism. 
Unquestionably Aristotle was a great scholar, perhaps the 
greatest the world has known; but before all else he was a pro- 
found thinker, a man of all-comprehensive ideas and great 
power of statement. That he assimilated to his own ideas a 
vast material, and so prescribed the course which science and 
philosophy followed for centuries, constitutes his principal title 
to greatness. As a thinker, however, Aristotle is wholly rooted 
in the classical world : its fundamental views, its valuations, 
work on uninterruptedly in him. Whoever traces his doctrines 
and conceptions back to their source soon becomes aware of the 
peculiar Greek quality concealed beneath their apparent uni- 
versality. In a word, Aristotle's system brings the substance of 
the classic world of Greece to marvellously perfect scientific 
expression, and so hands it down to future humanity. 

The sympathetic attitude toward tradition, and the endeavour 
to maintain a friendly relation with actual conditions, of them- 
selves indicate a disposition different from that of Plato. In- 
stead of the latter's powerful and independent personality, with 
its inevitable antagonism to its surroundings, its passionate fer- 
vour and the strong, harshly contrasted colours of its view of the 
world, we have in Aristotle a simple, serious, never-wearying 
effort to comprehend the objective world, to discover its actual 
state, and to trace all its relationships. With this appeal to the 
actual world, this linking of thought with things, activity re- 
solves itself into the tireless industry that energetically explores 
the world and brings forth its hidden riches for the service of 
man. Thus, out of the philosophy created by a sovereign per- 
sonality there grows the philosophy resulting from an all-con- 



46 HELLENISM 

quering industry; this too is a permanent type, and the source 
of a particular view of life. 

(b) Elements of the Aristotelian View of the World 

The peculiar character of the Aristotelian view of the world 
appears most readily by comparison with the Platonic. Aris- 
totle himself is chiefly conscious of his opposition to Plato; 
whereas, in truth, they have a great deal in common. First of 
all, he shares with Plato the conviction that human life is to be 
comprehended only from the stand-point of the whole of reality : 
with him, also, our existence finds its source in the cosmos; our 
deeds are true through conformity with reality; all activity fol- 
lows its object, all method the matter in hand. But it is intelli- 
gence that unites us to the universe; hence, here also, intelli- 
gence is the essence of our being. Truth is revealed only to 
thought, and to thought in the form of concepts; hence, here 
again, philosophy becomes pre-eminently the science of concepts; 
investigation should transform the world into a realm of con- 
cepts. Finally, Aristotle shares with his master the high regard 
for form; it constitutes also for him the abiding essence as well 
as the worth and beauty of things. 

With such decided agreement in the general point of view, 
Aristotle's philosophy retains enough kinship with Platonism to 
admit of its being harmonised with a broad view of the latter. 
But apart from this general similarity, it presents the furthest 
conceivable divergence from Platonism. For, while for Plato 
there is no eternal truth and no pure beauty without the strictest 
separation of the world of essence from that of appearance, 
Aristotle's chief concern is to show the unity of all reality. Ac- 
cording to the latter's conviction, we only need to understand 
the world aright in order to recognise in it an empire of reason, 
and to find in it all that human beings require. The Platonic 
Doctrine of Ideas is rejected as an inadmissible separation of 
the actual world from the world of real being. Moreover, there 
is no room here for a religion. To be sure, Aristotle affirms the 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 47 

existence of a transcendent Deity as the source of reason, and 
as the origin of the motion which from eternity to eternity per- 
vades the universe. But he denies to this Deity any activity 
within the world; concern with external things, not to say petty 
human affairs, would destroy the completeness of the Deity's 
life. So God, or pure Intelligence, himself unmoved, moves the 
world by his mere being; any further development of things 
arises from their own nature. Here, accordingly, there is no 
moral order of the world, and no Providence. Likewise, there 
can be no hope of a personal immortality. True, the power of 
thought in us does not spring from a mere natural process; and 
it will not be extinguished with the dissolution of the body, but 
return to the universal reason. But such indestructibility of the 
divine in us does not mean the continuance of the individual. 

With the disappearance of religion the spiritual inwardness 
and greatness of soul of a Plato are lost. Life receives narrower 
limits, and its dominant feeling becomes more sober. But the 
above negation has not the significance for Aristotle of a sur- 
render of the rationality of the actual world, or of the ideality of 
life. The world with its own undisrupted being here seems equal 
to the attainment of all aims, while the present life now becomes 
of sufficient importance fully to occupy and to satisfy mankind. 
But the rationality of the world does not lie exposed upon the 
surface; science is necessary, in order to free the appearance of 
things from illusion and to penetrate beyond the confusions and 
contradictions of the first impression to the harmony of the 
whole. Out of the effort to attain this unity there springs a 
thoroughly individual view of the world and of life, a system of 
immanent idealism, which is incomparable in the poise and 
precision of its achievement. 

The first antithesis Aristotle undertakes to solve is that of 
Matter and Form. Plato, to insure its independence and purity, 
severed Form completely from sensuous existence, and ascribed 
it to the latter only in a derivative sense. But Aristotle knows 
Form only as united with Matter; it is actual only within the 
living process which always includes Matter also. This living 



4 8 HELLENISM 

process is a striving upward of Matter toward Form, and a 
seizure of the Matter by the Form. For the principal movement 
always resides with the Form, as the animating and shaping 
Force. Hence the developed being must always precede the 
one which is evolving, and every attempt to derive the actual 
from non-rational beginnings must be rejected. In the case of 
terrestrial life, it is true that the Matter is confined only for a 
limited time, and in death disappears from the structure. But 
in generation the Form continually seizes new Matter, so that 
evolution is a constant victory of Form over the formless, and 
also of the good over the less good. For in view of the readiness 
with which Matter receives the Form, it would hardly do to 
speak of a principle of evil. Aristotle, indeed, is proud of the fact 
that his own system does not ascribe an independent power to 
evil, and hence avoids any duality of principles. Such evils as 
exist in human affairs spring from the tendency in Matter not 
to carry out fully the movement toward Form, but to remain 
arrested upon a lower stage. In this way much that fails of its 
purpose originates. Yet the philosopher is reassured by the re- 
flection that evil nowhere manifests an independent nature, but 
always consists in an abatement from the good, a deprivation of 
excellence. 

Such a solution of the antithesis alters the view of develop- 
ment inwardly as well. If Form is less an archetype superior to 
things than a force at work within them, what we may call the 
artistic view of reality fades before the dynamic; the evolution 
of life itself becomes the main thing. The world now appears 
ruled by ends, that is, by life-wholes, which comprise within 
themselves a multitude of processes and unite them to a joint 
result. Such life-wholes are seen first of all in organisms, which 
exist in an ascending scale according to the degree of articula- 
tion. That is to say, the more sharply the organs and functions 
are separated the greater will be the total efficiency: man 
accordingly constitutes the highest form of natural life. But 
the sphere of ends extends beyond the realm of organic beings 
to the universe; or rather, the conception of the organic em- 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 49 

braces the whole of nature. Nowhere in the universe do mo- 
tions appear to intersect each other confusedly, rather every 
motion takes place in a determinate direction, and arrives at a 
fixed point of termination, where it passes into a permanent 
state, namely, some equivalent effect. Herewith we encounter 
the sharp distinction between an activity directed merely to an 
end beyond itself, and the complete activity that has its end 
within itself, called in Aristotelian phrase "energy." This com- 
plete activity, with its development of all latent capacities, and 
its union of all multiplicity into a living process, is in no wise 
a mere play upon the surface, but moves the whole being and 
discloses the uttermost depths of things. This holds good both 
of the individual and of the universe. Traversed by movement, 
complete activity itself remains at rest, and forms, with all its 
complexity, a living, organic whole — not something "episodic," 
like a bad tragedy. 

A similar effort to attain unity appears in Aristotle's treat- 
ment of the mind and the body, or the inner and the outer. He 
neither knows of, nor looks for, a separate existence of the soul. 
The soul forms with the body a single life-process; it needs the 
body, just as vision needs the eye, or any function i + s organ. 
Hence the sensuous ought never to be decried; even in the 
process of knowledge it stands in high honour. True, this pri- 
mary view is summarily sacrificed to the necessity that thought 
should surmount all natural processes. It could not grasp an 
enduring truth, nor reproduce faithfully the varied multiplicity 
of things, were it entangled in the changes and contradictions of 
the sensuous world. We must, therefore, assign to thought a 
position of supremacy, a share in the divine and the eternal. 
Yet whatever transpires upon this summit alters nothing of the 
outlook upon the rest of the world; this shows soul and body 
closely intertwined and co-ordinated. 

In harmony with his fundamentally monistic tendency, Aris- 
totle is likewise unable to separate inner from outer in the matter 
of conduct, and so to build up a moral realm of pure inward- 
ness; rather he places inner and outer in a relation of unceasing 



50 HELLENISM 

reciprocity, and everywhere unites energy of will and compliant 
outer conditions into a single organic whole. In his view, all 
volition tends to become externally visible, and since such an 
outward embodiment requires external means, the environment 
acquires far greater worth than it possessed for Plato. Likewise, 
the soul is here not furnished with ready-made concepts, but 
must acquire them at the hands of experience; so, too, social 
surroundings exercise a decisive influence upon moral develop- 
ment. For such capacities for moral growth as slumber in us 
are aroused and developed only by action : yet conduct must at 
first be imposed from without in the form of customs and laws; 
then, finally, the outward requirement becomes transformed into 
personal volition. Hence, in direct opposition to Plato, for whom 
there could be no true morality, i. e., virtue founded upon in- 
sight, without a liberation from all social bonds, we have in 
Aristotle a recognition of the beneficent influence of society. 

Aristotle further brings about a nearer approach of the uni- 
versal and the particular. Thus, he does not sever the univer- 
sal from individual things and oppose them to the latter, as 
does Plato; instead, he ascribes reality to them only as existing 
in concrete individuals. Nor is he fond of dwelling upon some 
summit of the highest universality; rather his thought is per- 
sistently drawn back to the world of perception and captured 
by its wealth of life. Whatever belongs to a thing exclusively 
and as a differentia he recognises as the completion of its being. 
Thus, e. g., that which is peculiar to man forms the perfection 
of his nature, not what he possesses in common with other liv- 
ing beings. 

The principal contrast under which effort is viewed by Aris- 
totle is that of mere existence on the one hand, and of complete 
activity on the other; of empty, unsatisfied life, which ever 
looks vaguely beyond, and of life which realises its end and 
finds satisfaction in itself; of the being given by nature (£v p )> 
and that well-being (e3 tfiv) which is achieved by one's own 
acts. The state of nature is indeed the necessary presupposition 
of all development; and, viewed from this stand-point, the 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 51 

higher stages may appear to be superfluous. But it is in rising 
above the plane of mere necessity that life acquires content and 
worth; then we attain something that pleases in itself; then we 
find ourselves in the realm of beauty, and hence of real joy 
in life. 

Aristotle, in fact, is profoundly convinced that complete activ- 
ity, with its transformation of the whole being into living reality, 
yields at the same time the full sense of happiness. Hence hap- 
piness is principally our own creation; it cannot be communi- 
cated from without, nor put on like an ornament; rather it is 
proportional to rational activity and increases with it. If it be 
true that all life possesses a "natural sweetness," it must be par- 
ticularly satisfying to the virtuous man, who knows how to give 
it a noble content. Whoever condemns pleasure, considers only 
its lowest forms, since it may accompany activity on all its 
higher levels. Moreover, pleasure may lead to the refinement 
and perfecting of activity, as, e. g., delight in music promotes its 
creation. With this vindication of pleasure as the accompani- 
ment of all normal activity, we reach the classical expression of 
"eudemonism," which teaches that the pleasure inseparable 
from activity stands far above all selfish enjoyment. 

Hence only when activity attains complete, substantial effi- 
ciency does it lift human existence up to happiness. All show 
in conduct yields only the show of happiness. Accordingly, 
Aristotle insists upon veracity, and denounces every form of 
pretence: "solid," "genuine" ((nrovBalo?) , is his favourite ex- 
pression for the man who is the embodiment of virtue. 

But excellence rises into distinction by the working out of the 
difference between beauty and utility, or that which pleases in 
itself, and that which is valued as a means to something else. 
Whoever makes utility the chief consideration is guilty of an 
inner perversion of life. For the service of utility continually 
directs activity to outward, alien things, while, with all the sup- 
posed advantages, the self is left inwardly empty. The result is 
a sharp contrast between a noble and a mean, a free and a ser- 
vile, conduct of life. It is the business of a free and large- 



52 HELLENISM 

minded man everywhere to seek beauty rather than utility; in- 
deed, from this point of view, the lack of any useful results be- 
comes an evidence of the inner worth of an occupation. Just 
this forms the proud boast of pure philosophy, that it offers no 
advantage whatever for the material life, but has its end wholly 
within itself. Thus we see that Aristotle's stronger leaning 
toward the actual world, and his rejection of the world of 
Ideas, have by no means sapped the power of ideal feeling. 

(c) The Sphere of Human Experience 

We have seen that human life must find its tasks and its re- 
wards exclusively in this earthly existence, yet also that this 
limitation caused no serious conflicts for Aristotle. For this 
life affords opportunity for the full employment of all our facul- 
ties, and therefore for the attainment of the highest happiness. 
Hence there remain no wishes or hopes which cannot be ful- 
filled; nor is any need of individual immortality felt, or any 
impulse to cross the boundaries of existence prescribed by 
nature. 

It thus becomes all the more important to make full use of 
this present life, and to raise it to the highest point of efficiency. 
With this in view, we must have special regard to our pecu- 
liarly human faculties, and determine our activity accordingly. 
The characteristic faculty of man is reason, which means, ac- 
cording to Aristotle, the power of thought, with its capacities for 
forming general concepts and arriving at general truths. Intel- 
ligence must, on the one hand, develop itself, and, on the other, 
react strongly upon those lower forms of mental life which we 
possess in common with the animals. This constitutes our life- 
work. Activity in accordance with reason, unobstructed and 
extending over the whole of life — not for a short time only, for 
one swallow does not make a spring — this and nothing else con- 
stitutes the happiness of man. 

Possessed of such a conviction, Aristotle insists strongly upon 
filling the whole of life with strenuous activity. Even excellence 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 53 

does not suffice, unless it is brought into exercise. For in sleep 
we experience no true happiness; nor in the Olympic games 
are the laurels won by the spectators, but by those who take 
part in the contest. But with Aristotle the unfolding of the 
active powers encounters no great obstacles. The soul is not 
estranged from itself, nor does it need to undergo a complete 
transformation, as with Plato; rather, human reason is merely 
undeveloped, and needs only to rise from latent capacity to a 
perfected faculty, while natural impulse always aims at the 
right mark. 

Aristotle is unable to pursue the development of human life 
further without investigating more closely the relation of the 
inner motives of activity to the external surroundings and con- 
ditions. But in doing so, he shows the influence of opposing 
tendencies. On the one hand, the close connection between the 
inner and the outer, involved in his view of the world, and his 
dread of severing the bonds which unite the individual to kin- 
dred, friends, and countrymen, forbid a complete detachment 
of activity and destiny from the environment : it is impossible to 
withdraw ourselves from what there takes place and exerts its 
influence upon us. Tending in the opposite direction is Aris- 
totle's effort to make conduct as independent as possible, and to 
exempt it from the contingencies of external relations, bondage 
to which throws us into a vacillation incompatible with true 
happiness. The result of these conflicting tendencies is a com- 
promise, whereby the main thing in conduct becomes the inner 
act, the power and capacity of the agent, while its complete suc- 
cess depends partly upon outward circumstances. Just as a 
drama requires a scenic mounting, so our conduct requires for 
its completion embodiment in a visible performance, presenta- 
tion upon the stage of life. But the inner act remains by far the 
chief factor. External goods serve only as the means and ex- 
pression of action; they have value only so far as the latter 
appropriates and uses them; beyond this limit they become a 
useless accessory, indeed an impediment to life. Hence any 
effort toward the unlimited accumulation of external goods 



54 HELLENISM 

must be emphatically condemned. For it is possible to attain 
the highest happiness with only moderate means; one can do 
what is beautiful, i. e., act nobly, without ruling over land and 
sea. But the opposition of fortune must not be too great. Not 
only are certain elementary conditions, such as a normal physi- 
cal stature, health, etc., essential to a happy life, but, on the 
other hand, overwhelming adversity can destroy it. Yet Aris- 
totle's calm good sense, intent upon the average experience, and 
less concerned for the destiny of the race than for the welfare of 
individuals, is not deeply agitated over the possible calamities. 
The capable man, in his opinion, can face the battle of life with 
a stout heart. Our mental powers are quite equal to the ordi- 
nary evils. The heavy blows of fortune, such as befell Priam, 
are rare exceptions; but even they cannot make the noble man 
miserable. For when he patiently bears the heaviest misfor- 
tunes, not from stupidity, but out of greatness of soul, the beauty 
of his spirit shines through all his suffering. Hence all the disas- 
ters and inequalities of life do not shake Aristotle's faith in rea- 
son, nor prevent him from entering confidently upon a closer 
analysis of life's scope and content. 

In doing this, he distinguishes two divergent aims in life : the 
development of the mind in and for itself, and the subjugation 
of the physical nature, or, the theoretical and the practical 
lives, as he terms them. 

Of these two lives, Aristotle accords unqualified pre-eminence 
to the theoretical. It makes us freer from outward circum- 
stances and more self-reliant. Then, science is concerned with 
the universe and its immutable elements; insight can here 
attain a stability and an exactness which are denied to the prac- 
tical sphere by its ceaseless change. Aristotle's various expres- 
sions on this point culminate in the view that the acquiring of 
knowledge is the purest form of a large and self-sufficing activ- 
ity, and that it most nearly fulfils the conditions demanded by 
the idea of happiness. Hence he says that true happiness is co- 
incident only with the search for truth. It is not in our human 
capacity that we have a share in it, but only in so far as the 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 55 

divine dwells in us; and this indwelling of the divine constitutes 
the only human immortality. 

On the other hand, the practical sphere appears at first at 
a distinct disadvantage; its one problem is to subject the natural 
impulses to the mastery of the intellect. But this does not 
mean a control so to say by compulsion, but by an inward 
rationalising of the man's desires, by an incorporation of reason 
into the individual will; thus there is developed the conception 
of moral virtue, of a certain bearing and disposition of the 
whole man; at the same time, too, an inner relation of man to 
man. Aristotle's full and sympathetic account of this sphere 
readily creates the impression that he is not here concerned with 
some lower stage, but with a whole realm, indeed with the 
heart of life itself. 

This impression is created in particular by Aristotle's treat- 
ment of the conception which, for him, dominates the whole of 
the practical life, the conception, namely, of the Mean. This 
conception is reached by a simple reflection. If the physical life 
is to be subject to reason, or, what is the same thing, reason is 
to be exhibited in the physical life, dangers arising from two 
opposite sources must be avoided. The physical life may 
either resist the sway of reason with unbridled violence, or it 
may prove to be too weak and meagre to afford reason the nec- 
essary means of a full development. Hence the just mean be- 
comes the sum of practical wisdom. Moral virtue must avoid 
both a too much and a too little. For example, the brave man 
occupies the mean between the foolhardy man and the coward, 
the thrifty man the mean between the spendthrift and the 
miser, the agreeable man the mean between the wag and the 
dullard. In this doctrine of the mean, Aristotle shows himself 
to be in close touch with the Greek people, his full descriptions 
often appear to be pictures of actual life, and even his diction 
follows the vernacular. At the same time, many fundamental 
convictions which remind us of Plato pervade his work. Thus, 
in his doctrine of the mean, Aristotle expressly appeals to the 
analogy of art, whose masterpieces neither permit anything to 



56 HELLENISM 

be added nor to be taken away. Likewise, the ethical idea of 
justice exerts an influence. For every aim within the system of 
human ends should receive its precise due, in accordance with 
the individual case; any departure therefrom, toward the more 
or toward the less, involves an injustice. Even if Aristotle sur- 
renders the Platonic idea of a moral order, of an all-pervading 
universal law of justice, he none the less asserts its power within 
the sphere of human conduct. 

The demand that the just mean be followed makes conduct vital 
rather than conventional. What the just mean is cannot be 
settled once for all, owing to the ceaseless change of life's condi- 
tions; nor can it be deduced from general propositions; on the 
contrary, it must be freshly determined every moment, in ac- 
cordance with each particular situation. This requires, above 
all, accuracy of estimate, an unerring tact. Conduct thus be- 
comes the Art of Life; existence is every moment tense, since 
the good helmsman must each time steer his way between Scylla 
and Charybdis with the same care. 

Consequently, the just mean is unattainable unless we per- 
fectly comprehend both the attendant circumstances and our 
own capacities. To avoid undertaking either too much or too 
little, we must know precisely how much we are capable of 
achieving; we must not only be efficient, but also know that we 
are so, and how far our efficiency extends. We should, therefore, 
be as free from all empty vanity and idle boasting as from 
faint-hearted self-depreciation. In other words, a just self- 
consciousness here appears indispensable to the perfection 
of life; hence self-knowledge in the early Greek sense, i. e., a 
correct estimate of one's own capacities, in distinction from a 
brooding over one's inner state, attains with Aristotle its most 
important philosophical development. 

Thus, the principle of the Mean works its way into every 
ramification of life and adapts itself to all life's varied aspects. 
The result is that everywhere intelligence is introduced and 
action subjected to thought. As a further consequence, the rela- 
tion of instinct to reason becomes such that the supremacy of the 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 57 

mind is preserved without violating the rights of the natural 
disposition. For whatever nature has implanted in man, as, 
e. g., self-love, is forthwith accepted; to attempt to eradicate it 
would be as perverse as it would be vain. Yet it must conform 
to the law of the mean, and recognise its limit, if it would work 
in harmony with reason; and for that mind and thought are 
required. Accordingly, the notion of the Limit signalises a tri- 
umph of mind over crude nature, and at the same time a har- 
monious adjustment between true nature and reason. The 
Aristotelian mean is not an endorsement of humdrum mediocrity, 
which shrinks from everything great. For its aim is not to 
keep everything down to a medium level, but merely to preserve 
the harmony of reason and nature within the sphere of conduct. 
How little the thought of the mean excludes that of greatness 
appears most clearly from the fact that Aristotle finds his ideal of 
human life in the high-minded man (/jLeyaXo^jrvxo^) , and bestows 
upon the delineation of his character the most sympathetic care. 
The high-minded man has greatness of mind, and is fully 
conscious of it. He represents the just mean between the man 
who is vain of his capacities and the one who has a certain 
greatness, but does not know it, and hence does not sufficiently 
develop his powers. The high-minded man is not only fully 
conscious of his own importance, but will everywhere make it 
emphatically felt; and in all that he does and leaves undone he 
will, above all, preserve his dignity and greatness of soul. Pos- 
sessed of such a disposition, he will speak only the plain truth, 
love openly and hate openly, be free from all fear of men, accept 
favours reluctantly, and return those received in superabundant 
measure, gladly confer benefits himself, be proud and reserved 
toward the great, but friendly toward those beneath him. He 
will always esteem beauty above utility and the truth above ap- 
pearance. And he will choose for himself the most difficult and 
the most thankless of tasks. His outward demeanour will cor- 
respond with such a"disposition. That is, he will always conduct 
himself with composure and dignity, speak deliberately, never 
be precipitate, etc. 



58 HELLENISM 

Although there is much in such a picture to astonish one, it 
manifestly represents the active life developed into a rounded, 
self-sufficient personality. Whoever expects as confidently as 
Aristotle does that happiness will be found in a calm, self-con- 
tained activity, cannot make the effects of conduct the principal 
thing, but will look chiefly to the state of the agent himself. 
And in truth, it is the inner conditions of conduct that Aristotle 
investigates with particular care. Such conceptions as those of 
intention, and of voluntary and involuntary acts, he subjects to 
searching analysis, and gradually shifts the centre of gravity 
from the outward performance to the inner attitude of the 
agent. Hence the notion of self-contained conduct deepens into 
that of a self-contained life; the idea of moral personality de- 
taches itself and life becomes wholly self-centred. 

True, these developments are left by Aristotle largely in an 
unfinished state. The majestic personality described above is 
primarily an affair of the individual: if man measures himself 
less by an ideal of reason than by comparison with other men, 
moral worth becomes a matter of individual eminence in con- 
trast with others. Accordingly, the idea of personality develops 
more disintegrating than unifying force. Thus, in the midst of 
what is new, we discern the limitations of the time. 

But whatever aims, either in the practical or the theoretical 
sphere, are brought to light by Aristotle, they must necessarily 
appear as attainable to such an exalted faith in reason as his. 
He is not, indeed, unconscious of the difficulties. His mind is 
much too open to the impressions of experience to see nothing 
but reason everywhere. And his judgment of mankind is too 
much influenced by the national habits of thought not to distin- 
guish two classes, a large majority of bad, or at least common- 
place, natures, and a small minority of noble ones. Men are 
ruled by passion and appetite; and the sense of the masses is 
not for the noble and the beautiful, but for the useful. They are 
brought to wrong-doing, however, mainly by inordinate desire 
and selfish greed. "Appetite is insatiable, and the multitude 
live only to gratify it." 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 59 

But Aristotle does not so lightly deliver up the human sphere 
to unreason; rather, he finds abundant means of correcting the 
above impression. In the first place, he is of opinion that the 
evil in man is easily exaggerated, inasmuch as what is only a 
consequence of natural conditions is often set down as guilt. 
Thus, e. g., man is taxed with ingratitude, because the recipi- 
ents of favours usually manifest less feeling than those who be- 
stow them, children less affection than their parents, etc., 
whereas the simple explanation is that giving causes more 
pleasure than receiving, and that this satisfaction makes the 
object of our bounty pleasing to us. Then, Aristotle is not 
ready to jumble together in one lot all the less capable men; 
instead he distinguishes several degrees, and recognises in the 
highest an approach to the ideal. On the other hand, the really 
vicious, the criminal, are to be excluded; but the number is not 
large, and the average condition represents rather venial weak- 
ness than positive evil. Furthermore, there exists a not im- 
portant difference between those who aim at gain and self- 
indulgence, and those who pursue honour and power. Particu- 
larly honour, the reflection of virtue, lifts conduct to a higher 
plane. But even the residue of imperfection is exalted in Aris- 
totle's mind by the conviction that also in the lower there is a 
natural impulse toward the higher, an impulse that carries it 
beyond its present condition and its limited consciousness; for, 
" everything has by nature something of the divine." Associated 
with this tendency to see in the lower less the degenerate and the 
abandoned than what is struggling upward is a highly character- 
istic belief that the life of the community represents a summation 
of reason. Granted that the average man individually accom- 
plishes very little : yet let men unite themselves into a commu- 
nity, and they become as one personality; the good in all can 
fuse into one, and the whole become morally and intellectually 
superior even to the greatest individuals. Inasmuch, namely, 
as each contributes his special faculty, and the various capac- 
ities become organised, the whole which results is freer from 
anger and other passions, more protected against blunders, 



60 HELLENISM 

and, especially, surer in its judgment, than the mere indi- 
vidual. Even with music and poetry, the great public is the 
best judge. In making such an apology for the multitude, 
Aristotle is not thinking of just any haphazard, motley public, 
but of the more stable community of a city possessing a homo- 
geneous civilisation. Yet without a strong belief in an element 
of good in men, this apology would not, even so, have been 
possible. 

Aristotle's convictions as to history accord excellently with 
such a faith. Their basis is to be found in the Platonic philos- 
ophy of history. With Aristotle, as with Plato, there is no ascent 
ad infinitum, but a cycle of similar periods. Given the eternity 
of the world — which Aristotle was the first to teach with perfect 
distinctness — and an infinitude lies behind us; periodically, 
whatever has been evolved up to a given time is destroyed by 
great floods, and the process begins over again; only the popu- 
lar religion (rationalistically interpreted) and language unite 
the several epochs by transmitting, at least in remnants, the 
wisdom of earlier periods. But to this general view Aristotle 
adds the special one, that in classical Greece the culmination of 
such a revolution had been reached shortly before. Hence 
attention should be concentrated upon it, rather than upon the 
future, which does not give promise of great progress. Theo- 
retical investigation, however, has assigned to it the task of 
scientifically probing the grounds of whatever may be brought 
to light by circumstance and custom, and so of translating into 
concepts the actual historical world. 

Accordingly, the course of the argument justifies Aristotle's 
own attitude toward the Greek world. If in the civilisation of 
Greece the highest has been attained that ever can be, then the 
effort to seek out the reason immanent in it, and, so far as pos- 
sible, to make it the point of departure for his own work, is 
amply justified. Aristotle is thus enabled not only to place him- 
self in a sympathetic attitude toward the foundations of Greek 
civilisation, but also to esteem public opinion as a sure index 
to the truth. 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 61 



(d) The Several Departments of Life 

The several departments of life attain with Aristotle a far 
greater independence, and they offer more special problems and 
demand more work than with Plato. Here the particular is 
not a mere application, but a further development, of the gen- 
eral. Life reaches out in all directions; and since its span cov- 
ers a greater area, notwithstanding its ceaseless movement it 
gains in essential repose. The vast increase of detail destroys 
neither the unity of the whole nor the dominance of certain all- 
pervading convictions; for however much the leading ideas 
adapt themselves to the peculiarities of the several spheres, the 
bond of analogy holds all together. Everywhere there is a high 
estimate placed upon activity, everywhere the detection of an 
inner reason, everywhere a reconciliation of contradictions; 
everywhere, too, there is a simple objectivity, a nearer approach 
to the immediate life of the soul, and a greater transparency in 
the articulation of the system. 

(a) THE FORMS OF HUMAN ASSOCIATION 

More independent and richer in content appears, first, the 
sphere of human intercourse. How Aristotle is drawn from the 
universe to man is shown, among other things, by his judgment 
as to the relative value of the senses. Plato and the other Greek 
thinkers had declared the eye to be the most important sense, 
owing to its perception of the great world; and Aristotle, too, 
does not reject this estimate. But, on more careful considera- 
tion, he declares the ear to be more important for the intellectual 
development, on account of its relation to language and hence to 
human society. Furthermore, the difference between human 
speech and the sounds made by animals he regards as an evi- 
dence of the greater intimacy of our intercourse. 

Aristotle displayed the liveliest interest in the differentiation 
of human life and action. He was an acute observer and de- 



62 HELLENISM 

lineator of the various types of human nature, and his school in- 
troduced descriptions of the several "characters." Likewise, 
his followers were only imitating the effort of the master when 
they devoted special attention to the virtues of social life. 
Finally, the higher estimate which Aristotle placed upon man and 
upon human society is closely connected with the careful con- 
sideration of history which distinguished him. The achieve- 
ments of his predecessors were kept constantly in view in his 
own studies, and it was from his school that the history of phil- 
osophy sprang. 

But the fullest development of human life still leaves the 
main structure of society simple enough. Two principal forms 
comprise the whole : the relation of friendship, and life in the 
State, the one covering the personal relations of individuals and 
the other the wider human intercourse and the organisation of 
intellectual work. 

Friendship has an incomparable worth for Aristotle because, 
first of all, after the surrender of religion, it alone affords a 
richer development of the life of sentiment, and scope for the 
full realisation of individuality. "A life without friends no one 
would desire, even though he possessed all other goods." 

Friendship in the sense of Aristotle, however, means the asso- 
ciation with another man — his thought is particularly of one 
friend — in a steadfast community of life and conduct, and with 
such a complete reception of the other into one's own world of 
thought, as to gain in him another "self." Friendship is here 
no mere affinity of minds, but a union of the conduct and effec- 
tive work of both; even in this case everything depends upon 
activity, the state of feeling being always closely connected with 
and determined by it. Hence the interest lies beyond the dis- 
position and in the achievement, and friendship grows with the 
greatness of the man. The aim is to interchange the fruits of 
corresponding attainments, and so to keep pace in a noble rivalry. 
Thus friendship merges into the idea of justice. There is here 
no place for a forgetting of self and a naive devotion, for an un- 
merited and immeasurable love. The Aristotelian friendship is 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 63 

no liberation from self, but a widening of self. For it is rooted 
in a genuine self-love, in a friendship of man with his own being. 
Just as only the virtuous man is at one with himself in all that 
he does, or is a good friend to himself, so only he can show true 
and lasting friendship. And friendship enhances happiness, 
since not only is one's activity increased, but the friend's noble 
deeds are more visible than one's own. 

As this conception of friendship involves harmony of action, 
and indeed, of regulated, visible action, so it allows of a full jus- 
tification of family life with its fixed limits. On the other hand, 
compared with the relation of friendship, the idea of humanity 
is much too shadowy to exert an influence upon life. True, we 
are told that every man feels the bond of man to man, that we 
have a natural inclination to help one another, and desire com- 
panionship even without any thought of advantage; but all that 
remains in the background, and leads to no fixed relationship, 
no community of work. It is the smaller, more easily surveyed, 
groups that engross men's attention; seldom does the glance 
extend beyond one's own nation. The Greek people, however, 
with their union of the courage of the European and the intelli- 
gence of the Asiatic nations, appear to be the flower of the race. 
United in a single state, they could rule the world. 

But this thought of a universal empire ruled by the Greeks — 
noteworthy enough in the tutor of Alexander — is not further 
pursued; rather, the chief form of human association remains 
for Aristotle the single Greek state, the city-state with its lim- 
ited territory, its fixed summary of all human problems, and 
its close personal union of the individual citizens. Nowhere 
more than here, where its glory already lay behind it, is this city- 
state illuminated and glorified by theory. In defence of its nar- 
row limits, Aristotle urges that a proper community is possible 
only where the citizens can form a judgment of one another; 
but the deeper reason lay in the fact that only a circumscribed 
community, inseparably uniting all intellectual aims with actual 
companionship, could become a personality after the manner of 
the individual. That the state should have such a personal 



64 HELLENISM 

nature is, however, the essence of the Aristotelian doctrine. 
From this conviction, we have the direct corollary that the ends 
of both state and individual are identical, and that there is the 
closest connection between ethics and politics. If the highest 
good of man is a self-contained, self-sufficing completeness of 
activity, the state should seek its welfare in nothing else. There 
follows the most emphatic disapproval of all aggressive foreign 
politics, all greed for unlimited expansion, all wars for conquest, 
etc. Instead of pursuing such a course, let the state find its 
tasks in peaceful activities, in the development and organisa- 
tion of the capabilities of its citizens into a compact, vigorous 
society. 

Rational activity here implies, above all, the mental and moral 
efficiency of the state and of its individual members; hence the 
chief effort must be directed to spiritual ends. Even under the 
conditions of life in common, material goods have a value only 
as a means to activity, and they should be kept well within the 
implied limits. For the most serious disturbances arise from 
the importunate demands of the multitude for the unrestricted 
accumulation of property and riches. Moreover, the delusive 
expectation that happiness can be found in worldly possessions 
is disastrously increased by the introduction of money with the 
opportunity it offers for unlimited hoarding; for the lust for 
material wealth then possesses men more exclusively than ever. 
Hence, uncompromising war must be waged against it, even on 
the part of the civic community, whose duty it is to keep the 
citizens' thirst for gain within reasonable bounds, and particu- 
larly to oppose the dominion of money. In this spirit, all profit 
from the loaning of money is condemned, every form of interest 
declared to be usury, and in general this whole inversion of 
means and end stigmatised as immoral. Thus we have the 
foundation of the distinctly ethical type of political economy, 
which dominated economic theory during the Middle Ages 
and also profoundly influenced practice. With Aristotle the 
two presuppositions of this doctrine are clear: an exact limita- 
tion of material goods by a fixed and easily recognisable end in 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 65 

life, and a complete correspondence between the welfare of the 
community and that of the individual. 

If, however, the individual is but a miniature of the state, 
then in their reciprocal relations the unqualified supremacy be- 
longs to the latter. As a fact, Aristotle defends the complete 
subjection of the individual: he reduced this subordination to 
formulas which have been handed down throughout the whole 
course of history as a classical expression of the doctrine of the 
omnipotence of the state. The state he calls the self-sufficient 
community; only in it can man realise his rational nature; 
accordingly, he says of it that it was prior (i. e., in its nature and 
conception prior) to man. 

For the illustration of his doctrine of the state, Aristotle is fond 
of employing the metaphor of an organism; for he it was who 
introduced this conception into political theory. As, in the case 
of an organism, any single organ lives and performs its function 
only in connection with the whole, but so soon as it is severed 
from the whole, becomes dead matter, so it is with the relation 
of the individual to the state. Yet this theory appears to be par- 
ticularly adapted to allow the powerful development within the 
whole of the peculiar capabilities and effective activity of indi- 
viduals. 

An organism, namely, is viewed as the higher or more per- 
fect the greater its articulation, or differentiation of functions 
and organs. So, likewise in the state there should be the great- 
est possible division of labour. This conviction, enforced by 
Aristotle's keen observation and sober judgment, resulted in a 
decisive rejection of communistic theories. Work is well exe- 
cuted only when it is carefully organised; and the strongest 
motives to care and devotion arise from man's ownership of 
property and from his personal associations; for it gives him an 
unspeakable pleasure to call something his own. Moreover, the 
adherents of communism are the victims of an optimistic delu- 
sion when they expect from the mere community of property a 
harmony of all wills and the disappearance of crime. For the 
chief root of evil is not poverty, but the love of pleasure and in- 



66 HELLENISM 

satiable cupidity: "one does not become a tyrant merely to 
escape the cold." 

The idea of an organism in its ancient interpretation not only 
enhances the importance of the individual, but it effects also a 
thorough animation of the whole; it does not look upon the 
state as an artificial mechanism directed by superior insight, 
but as a living being sustained by its own powers. Hence it is 
essential to gain the loyal adherence of the citizens to the con- 
stitution of the state, and to give them all some share in political 
work. This, together with his view of the summation of reason 
in the state, makes Aristotle an advocate of democracy — to be 
sure, a democracy which is considerably limited in being worked 
out. At the same time, in direct opposition to Plato, he sets the 
universal order above even the most eminent personality: 
"Whoever lets law rule, lets God and reason rule alone; who- 
ever lets man rule, lets the animal in him rule too." 

The total effect of Aristotle's discussion of political questions 
far exceeds the influence of his particular theory of the state. 
Himself expatriated, his clear vision and calm judgment none 
the less so penetrated into the peculiar character of this domain, 
and his thinking developed so purely the inner necessity of things, 
that his work forms an inexhaustible mine of political wisdom. 
The immense material that accumulated he subdued by means 
of simple concepts and analyses; ideals he energetically upheld, 
but they do not interfere with the due appreciation of real, and 
particularly of economic, conditions; the manifold conflicting 
interests are weighed in the balance with painstaking conscien- 
tiousness and without feeble compromises; the political view 
attains the closest relation to history, and accordingly becomes 
more elastic and fruitful; the significance of the living present, 
the right of the existing state of things, meets with full recogni- 
tion. But the insight and sagacity of Aristotle's political views 
are equalled by his strong sense of justice and truth; everything 
that dazzles without being instructive, and, especially, whatever 
tends toward individual advantage at the expense of others, he 
decisively rejects. Characterised by such a union of technical 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 67 

greatness and ethical purpose, Aristotle's politics, notwith- 
standing all that is problematic in its detailed execution, re- 
mains a wonderful masterpiece. 

(/3) ART 

Although his doctrines are in all essential points an echo of 
Plato's aesthetic views, Aristotle himself lacks an intimate per- 
sonal relation to art. But his objective method again affords him 
such a clear insight into the nature of his subject that he is not 
only successful in elucidating a variety of particular points, but 
also is the first to formulate the main principles of art. Like 
Plato, he understands art to be an imitation of reality. How- 
ever, he does not find the subject of imitation in the several 
accidental, changeable features, but in the universal and typical 
aspect of things. The artist is not concerned with what happens 
at any particular moment, but with what happens always or 
usually. Hence Aristotle claims that poetry is more philosoph- 
ical and richer in content than history, that Homer stands above 
Heroditus. The revelation of a new world, wherein the creative 
fantasy comes to its full rights, is still far distant; but art 
here acquires a spiritual worth and has a specific task assigned 
to it. Aristotle, however, turns rapidly from general consider- 
ations to the particular arts; and of these he lays bare the 
psychological motives and follows out their effects with mar- 
vellous insight and clearness. The copestone of his aesthetic 
theory is provided by the doctrine of tragedy, which has exerted 
the profoundest influence even in modern times. And it has a 
particular value for our present consideration, since tragedy im- 
plies both a comprehensive view and a creed of human life. 
Aristotle's doctrine of tragedy, however, is seen in its true 
light, not when it is understood as a product of free reflection, 
but when it is taken as a translation into concepts and laws of 
the actual achievements of the Greek drama. Here again the 
thinker's attitude is altogether retrospective; he does not offer 
new suggestions, but seeks out the rationale of the great works 



68 HELLENISM 

of the past. He finds that the problem of tragedy does not lie so 
much within man himself as in his relation to the world; not in 
the complications and contradictions of his own being, but in 
the conflict with the world: it is the incongruity between inner 
guilt and outward prosperity which arouses the tragic sympa- 
thies. In accordance with such a fundamental view, the action 
must possess more unity, coherence, and brevity than in the 
modern drama with its inner conflicts and spiritual struggles. 
For, when it is not concerned with inner changes, but with the 
essentially fixed character of a man who is in direct conflict with 
destiny, the plot will appear to be the more happy in proportion 
as everything rushes swiftly to the denouement. Hence the doc- 
trine of the three unities of Time, Place, and Action could claim 
Aristotle's authority, although not without a forced interpreta- 
tion of the master's teaching. 

Likewise, in considering the effect of tragedy, we must avoid 
any intrusion of modern thoughts and feelings. Aristotle does 
not speak of the purging of the whole soul, but of the exercising 
of the emotions of pity and fear. What he expected from their 
exercise is still a moot question, upon which we will not enter. 
Plainly, however, what Aristotle seeks is the effect upon indi- 
viduals of a concrete, personal situation; i. e., he means to have 
characters and fortunes represented which will affect every one 
directly with pity and fear. Corresponding rules and limita- 
tions follow. The desired end seems to be most readily attain- 
able by the introduction of great reverses of fortune, especially 
a reverse from happiness to misery, provided it befall a man 
who has not removed himself from our sympathies by unnatural or 
extraordinary deeds, nor met with his misfortunes so much from 
depravity as from pardonable error. Thus the thought of the 
Mean, the Limit, appears here also, and not without a tendency 
to substitute the average man for all men. Accordingly, the heights 
as well as the depths of human conduct are excluded. The sobriety 
of Aristotle's theory would be more distinctly felt if every one did 
not unconsciously supplement it from the very masterpieces from 
which it drew, yet without exhausting their whole depths. 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 69 

In this domain, also, Aristotle's handling of his subject exerts 
an influence which far exceeds that of his conceptions and 
rules; clear, comprehensive, and objective, his method pro- 
duces results of permanent value. 

(7) SCIENCE 

In science we reach the culmination of Aristotle's life-work. 
The high estimate which he places upon theory is fully matched 
by his actual achievement. He appears at first to follow an en- 
tirely different course from that of his great predecessor. In- 
tuition yields to discussion and the explanation of things by 
causes; analysis comes to the fore; minutiae find sympathetic 
consideration; the several theoretical disciplines attain their 
first independence. Moreover, emotion disappears from scien- 
tific investigation, which no longer deeply involves the thinker's 
practical nature; instead, research means a calm examination 
of the object and a clear unfolding of its nature; and by ex- 
tending this effort to the whole of the actual world, investigation 
becomes synonymous with painstaking, inquisitive, unwearying 
intellectual toil. It is with this severance from immediate feeling 
that science first acquires a technical form and its own nomen- 
clature. While Plato felt the unyielding terms borrowed from art 
as a restriction upon the free movement of his thought, Aristotle 
became the creator of scientific terminology. The Aristotelian 
"science" is accordingly far more like science in the modern 
sense. It can embrace the whole sphere of human experience, 
and it produces a characteristic type of life, the life of research. 

But, notwithstanding this progress, Aristotle remains in close 
relation to Plato and the classical Greek world. Even the Aris- 
totelian method of research presupposes intuitive truths; the 
growth of analysis does not endanger the supremacy of synthe- 
sis, since all the elements obtained belong from the outset to a 
whole; nor does the development of separate disciplines destroy 
the firm coherence of a system. In particular, the relation of 
man to the world of things is not so changed as might appear 



7 o HELLENISM 

at first sight. For, even if Aristotle restrains subjective feeling, 
and subordinates it to the necessity of the objective fact, the 
conception of the objective fact is itself formed under human 
influence. With his translation of reality into forces, tenden- 
cies, capacities, and ends, he, too, is guilty of a personification 
(although a slight one) , and a personification which is the more 
dangerous, since it easily escapes notice and conceals its own 
presuppositions. Aristotle's conceptions of the world, in fact, 
all suffer from a confusion of the psychical and the material, 
i. e., from a hidden metaphor. And the effect was only the more 
disastrous the deeper his untiring energy implanted his leading 
ideas into the world of facts. Thus the rise of modern science 
was not possible without the destruction of the Aristotelian 
world of thought. 

In truth, Aristotle's incontestable greatness lies less in the 
investigation of principles than in the extensive contact between 
his general ideas and the wealth of his observation : to develop 
the common factors in such contact, to reduce to scientific 
knowledge an inexhaustible material by the introduction of 
fruitful ideas — this constitutes his incomparable strength. 
Here he appears pre-eminently as "the master of those who 
know" (Dante). 

The development of this capacity enables him to wander 
through the whole realm of knowledge, and everywhere he is 
fruitful, systematic, and masterful. Constantly we marvel at the 
even balance of his interest in the universal and in the particu- 
lar; this leads him at one time to extol pure speculation as the 
glory of life, the perfection of happiness; and at another it 
makes him an enthusiastic friend of natural science, and leads 
him to quote (apropos of the attacks upon anatomical study, 
which were still frequent) the saying of Heraclitus: "Enter; 
here, too, there are gods." 

Possessed of such qualities, Aristotle was the first to discover 
the elements and principal functions of human knowledge, and 
to create a system of logic that has reigned for centuries; he 
first freed from obscurities such fundamental concepts as time 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 71 

and space, motion and end; he led thought from the structure 
of the universe as a whole through all the gradations of nature 
up to the level of organic life, which also marks the culmination 
of his own research; he sketched the first system of psychology; 
he traced human life and conduct both in the ethical and political 
spheres and in those of oratory and art; and everywhere he was 
intent upon incorporating into his work the experience and the 
total achievement of his people. But above all the separate dis- 
ciplines rises the metaphysics, the earliest systematic science of 
first principles; this sketched in pure concepts a great outline of 
reality, the historical influence of which contributed much 
toward winning a secure position for dialectic, and toward ele- 
vating the whole of life to the plane of reflection. 

The net result of this herculean task may easily be criticised. 
Even Aristotle was a child of his time; and it was inevitable that 
in the then incomplete state of knowledge his indefatigable pur- 
suit of a final, closed system should have had a disastrous effect. 
For the extraordinary logical power with which in several de- 
partments an insufficient material is spun out and woven to- 
gether often results in the vindication of error instead of truth. 
But Aristotle, indeed, could not foresee what would come after 
him, and thus keep his world of thought open for a distant 
future. Any impartial estimate of him must concede his tower- 
ing eminence; and particularly such a review as the present 
owes him gratitude and reverence for having revealed to man- 
kind whole domains of the actual world, and for proving himself 
a triumphant creator of intellectual life. 

(e) Retrospect 

A just estimate of Aristotle rests primarily upon a clear con- 
ception of his relation to Hellenism. No longer a participant in 
the movements of the classical period, but an observer from a 
distance of its achievements, his intimate relation with the char- 
acteristic civilisation of Greece has often failed of recognition; 
and, as a thinker who translated into concepts and traced back 



72 HELLENISM 

to causes the vast information he amassed, he has too often been 
set down as a philosopher of the most abstract type. 

That, notwithstanding the developed technique of his investi- 
gations, and the elaborate logic of his treatises, his doctrines and 
conceptions, and his own personality, are firmly rooted in 
classical Greek soil, was shown even by the consideration of his 
view of life. For, as surely as this revealed a powerful capacity 
for independent thought, it also showed that Aristotle's thinking 
kept steadily in close touch with the Greek world, in fact was 
permeated with the fundamental views of his people. Cut off 
from Hellenism, his personality loses all that is most character- 
istic of it; for to this relation he owes at once his peculiar great- 
ness and his limitations. 

But, notwithstanding this intimate relation with his environ- 
ment, it is possible to distinguish a characteristic Aristotelian 
type of life. By the force of manly strength, trained efficiency, 
and simple veracity, knowledge and action here fuse into an all- 
absorbing life-work, and give a secure foothold in the actual 
world. Scientific investigation, by advancing from appearance 
to reality, makes the surrounding world incomparably more sig- 
nificant; to an instructed vision things reveal, even when in ap- 
parent inaction, a life of their own, a life regulated according to 
ends, self-contained and self-sufficing. At the same time, the 
world resolves itself into a profusion of varied forms, possessing 
interest alike for science and for practical life. To comprehend, 
and to unite into the harmony of a cosmos, this far more living 
and richer world, is the chief task of the life of research. Thus 
the world acquires stability, life becomes calm, and every form of 
well-being is expected to result from assiduous labour and steady 
development. Aristotle, accordingly, is the first of the line of think- 
ers who look upon life and the world as a continuous process. 

The contention that Aristotle's unquestionable greatness lies 
less in the inner unity of his view of the world and of life than in 
his subjugation of vast domains of knowledge by means of sim- 
ple and fruitful ideas is further corroborated by the influence 
which he has exerted upon history. For Aristotelianism never 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 73 

has led a progressive movement of thought, nor even afforded to 
any a powerful stimulus. But it has always proved to be valuable, 
in fact, indispensable, whenever existing bodies of thought re- 
quired extension, logical arrangement, and systematic comple- 
tion. This was shown in later antiquity in its influence upon the 
work of the compilers; so, too, Christianity, although at first 
unfriendly toward Aristotle, eagerly turned to him so soon as 
the immediate excitement was allayed and the time came for 
thinking out the new ideas; so, finally, he became the chief 
philosopher of the mediaeval Church with its rigid organisation 
of thought and life. But also in modern times, systematic 
thinkers of the highest rank, such as Leibniz and Hegel, have 
placed the very highest estimate upon his services to the history 
of thought. In short, wherever Aristotelianism has attained an 
influence it has operated to further logical training, to promote 
the formation of great systems, and the establishment of a secure 
foundation for the whole work of civilisation. Without its edu- 
cative and organising influence, modern science and culture, no 
less than the ancient, are unthinkable. 

Undeniably, this service has often been dearly bought. In 
times of less intellectual tension, the sheer weight and compact- 
ness of the Aristotelian system tended to repress independence 
of thought; it often seemed as if nothing new could challenge its 
firmly rooted authority. That, however, was less the fault of the 
master than of his followers, who possessed no independence to 
oppose to him. 

Quite incontestable, on the other hand, are Aristotle's great- 
ness and beneficial influence in the various departments of 
knowledge and of life. Here he left deeper traces than any other 
thinker in the whole course of history. In the most essential 
points he was the first to direct effort into sure channels; hence, 
without a due appreciation of his life-work no historical com- 
prehension of our own world of thought is possible. 

It was of the greatest consequence for classical antiquity that 
the epoch-making genius of Plato was followed by the executive 



74 HELLENISM 

genius of Aristotle; that the comprehensive, clear-sighted, la- 
borious mind of the one took up and carried forward the bold 
creative work of the other. Hence, on the one hand, there was 
unfolded in its purity whatever the culture of classical antiquity 
had to contribute to the deepest things in life; and, on the other, 
the desire for knowledge wrought itself out into a gigantic intel- 
lectual achievement. Thus, the two principal manifestations of 
an ideal view of the world and an ideal feeling for life, namely, 
the striving beyond the world, and back to the world, found in 
Plato and Aristotle respectively embodiments of such importance 
that they may be regarded as typical. 

By philosophy Greek civilisation itself is freed from the con- 
tingency inherent in historical development and its innermost 
essence illuminated and made more accessible to mankind. Its 
aims and achievements are appropriated by the work of thought 
in a purified and ennobled form, and given permanent efficacy. 
Out of this appropriating and refining arises an ideal of intel- 
lectual power and of constructive work which unites the true 
and the beautiful, science and art, in a remarkably perfect man- 
ner. And this creative activity is not divorced from moral char- 
acter, as it often is in later times, but combined with nobility of 
personal disposition, and a plain faith in the dignity of good- 
ness. For the rest, this ideal of life includes contradictions which 
later clash violently. While it displays a frank confidence in our 
intellectual capacity, and in the victory of courageous action, this 
bouyancy does not overleap itself in presumptuous self-assertion ; 
on the contrary, man here recognises that he is subject to a higher 
order, and willingly acquiesces in the prescribed limits. Again, 
he is summoned to supreme effort and to ceaseless activity, but 
the activity attains at its height a self-poise which protects him 
from the daily turmoil and sheds a pure joy over existence. 
Everywhere there should be system and organisation, nothing 
should be isolated, nothing dissipate itself; yet the organised 
systems do not repress or destroy individuality, but give it a 
more secure place and a higher worth within the whole. 

This union of all the principal tendencies and contrasts of 



THINKERS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 75 

life in a readily intelligible whole makes the view of life of the 
classical thinkers incomparable and irreplaceable. For the 
progress of civilisation has steadily dispersed the forces of life, 
steadily increased the outward obstacles, the inner complica- 
tions, and the sharpness of contrasts. But we cannot relinquish 
the effort for unity — that would be suicidal; hence we shall al- 
ways look back gladly to a view of life which vividly presents to 
us, as a realised fact, the ideal of wholeness. The particular 
form in which this Hellenic ideal was worked out has, of course, 
been rendered invalid by the great changes of history: the pre- 
suppositions, which seemed safely to bear the weight of the old 
system of life, have been found to contain difficult problems; 
the connection with reality and the starting-point of trustworthy 
constructive work, which a nai'ver condition of life believed to be 
ready to hand, or at least easily attainable, we must attain by 
laborious effort, and by profound changes both in the world of 
things and in ourselves. But, for all that, the ancient ideals 
retain their full historical truth, and the ancient mind its loftiness; 
and these will ever attract, stimulate, and delight us. 

The perennial charm and suggestiveness of the Hellenic ideal 
of life are mainly due to the historical position of the ancient 
world at the inception of European civilization. Since the prob- 
lem of life was then first taken hold of by science, the constructive 
handling of it had full originality. The freshness and joy which 
belong to the first perception — the discovery — of a thing; the 
naivete of sentiment; the simplicity of description; all are 
found quite unobscured at such an absolute beginning. On the 
other hand, the discursive extensions, the added reflections, 
which almost inevitably appear in later treatments, are absent. 
Much, once here said, is said for all time; it can never again be 
said so simply and so impressively. 

Hence, in spite of the mortality that clings even to them, the 
ancient thinkers remain the teachers and educators of mankind. 
In work and in the recreations of life, in happiness and in sor- 
row, humanity has ever returned to them, as to heroes of the 
spirit; they hold up before us imperishable ideals, and usher us 



7 6 



HELLENISM 



into the rich world of classical antiquity, which awakened all hu- 
man interests, embraced all activities, knew the joy of creating, 
loved vivid form, glorified nature, and possessed the inexhausti- 
ble vigour of youth. 

B. POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 

In recent times, historical research has thrown a much more 
favourable light upon the period of later antiquity; but the lay 
mind still often refuses it due recognition, because it does not 
view it in its historical perspective but measures it by extraneous 
standards. At one time it is represented as a mere preliminary 
to Christianity, and hence as something immature and incom- 
plete; at another, as the mere end and echo of the classical 
period, and thus likewise as inferior. In both cases, an extended 
epoch, full of inner movements and changes, is treated as a 
homogeneous whole, and summarily disposed of. The fact is, 
however, that it is precisely the views of life of later antiquity 
which give evidence of an independent and individually valuable 
character; they even require a division of the whole period into 
two, one filled with the calm work of civilisation, the other with 
religious agitation. The philosophy of the former may be char- 
acterised as rational worldly wisdom, that of the latter as specu- 
lative and mystical exaltation. It is principally this antithesis 
which gives to later antiquity a characteristic intensity. 

I. THE SYSTEMS OF WORLDLY WISDOM 

(a) The Intellectual Character o] the Hellenistic Period 

The post-classical period, which is customarily called the 
Hellenistic, lacked the principal motives of the classical view of 
life, namely, the stupendous creative work and the co-operation 
of all forms of effort in and through the native city-state. This 
state, indeed, outwardly preserved the traditional forms for 
a considerable time, but the life had vanished from them; 
national destinies were now decided elsewhere, particularly at 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 77 

the courts of princes, while petty states shrivelled up into dreary 
bourgeois communities. Politics thus loses its connection with 
the activity and sentiment of a larger body, and becomes the 
affair of a few prominent individuals. At the same time, the 
citizen gains freedom in his relation to the community; he is 
no longer supplied by it with settled convictions; nor do the 
faith and customs of his countrymen fetter him and prevent him 
from choosing his own paths. On the other hand, life now 
oversteps national barriers; a cosmopolitan sentiment arises 
and, even if it is not characterised by all the storm and stress 
of modern cosmopolitanism, it still tends, by the kindling of 
more refined emotions, to bring about a reconstruction of 
relations. 

Ancient cosmopolitanism found its chief support in a new 
trend of life, in. the development, namely, of an erudite culture, 
and in the associations of literary learning. As contrasted with 
the classical age, what followed was a complete revolution. 
There man felt himself dependent upon the universe and also 
inwardly at one with it; but perfect fellowship and the highest 
realisation of his own being were to be won only by severe 
struggle; yet in the conflict man attained to heroism, and his 
work rose to the plane of original creation, the production of 
new realities. This period of intellectual heroism is now closed. 
The individual no longer recognises himself as in sure relation 
with the universe, and as kin in being with the deepest things in 
reality. Rather, the general consciousness is dominated by the 
conviction that between man and the world lies a deep chasm 
which only arduous toil can bridge, and then but imperfectly. 
The subject being thus thrown back upon himself, the inner 
character of life also is changed; a large place is now assigned to 
reflection and to mood; the inner life of the individual becomes 
the chief abode of the spirit. 

Such reflection and brooding would shortly have plunged the 
subject into vacuity, had not the classical age handed down to 
him a splendid culture. The assimilation and utilisation of this 
culture now constitutes the substance of his life. At the same 



78 HELLENISM 

time, scholarship becomes the basis of urbanity and all the 
higher accomplishments; study and knowledge alone procure 
a share in spiritual goods; they also produce a special fellowship 
of men ; cultivated society detaches itself more sharply from the 
people, and elevates its members above all national and class 
distinctions. There results a cosmopolitanism of scholarly labour 
and literary cultivation. 

In such diligent and specialised work, through which there 
flows the stream of a silent joy springing from the incomparably 
rich and beautiful classical culture, the age finds its full satis- 
faction. As its pursuit of new aims is not passionate, so it does 
not assail the barriers of human existence; so, too, it knows 
nothing of the depths and the conflicts of the religious prob- 
lem. Among the people, indeed, religion is fostered, and con- 
tinually puts forth new shoots; but the cultivated man knows 
how to make terms with it after the rationalistic fashion, and 
feels no deeper religious need. The ethical core of the Greek 
faith, the belief in a retributive justice, is not surrendered; but 
in these times, which exhibit such stupendous catastrophes, and 
such remarkable reversals of individual fortune, there develops 
with peculiar force a belief in the power of the goddess Tyche, 
i. e., either a completely blind chance or one possessed by envy 
and malice. But even if the impression of the irrationality of hu- 
man fate should grow, and oft compel a sentimental resignation, 
still man is not so overwhelmed and terrified by evils as not to 
look for an adequate remedy in calm reflection and thoughtful 
prudence; and it is particularly philosophy from which these are 
to be expected. 

In all the foregoing developments the later age shows itself 
pitched in a much lower key than the classical; in intellectual 
power, in fact, it falls far behind its predecessor. But that its 
direction of attention to the individual, and its more vigorous un- 
folding of the inner life, constitute a valuable innovation, ap- 
pears with special distinctness from the views of life set forth by 
the philosophers. Also, let it be remembered that the several 
sciences now first attain full independence and extend their in- 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 79 

fluence far and wide, that in technical capacity man acquires far 
more power over things, that plastic art brings subjective emo- 
tion to increased, indeed to exaggerated, expression, that the 
drama finds an inexhaustible material in the relations of middle- 
class life, and finally, that the idyl and the portrayal of manners 
flourish. In every respect the individual attains greater free- 
dom and consideration. The fact that "the Hellenistic poets 
first elevated love to the rank of the chief poetic passion" 
(Rhode) testifies to the growth of individual life and to the ex- 
istence of a refined, but self -occupied, self-complacent senti- 
ment; so does the other fact that, in marked contrast with a 
decadent civilisation, there here first dawns a sentimental joy in 
nature, a longing for simple rural conditions, and for a purer life 
amid their beneficent influences. 

In all this we may recognise an approach to certain modern 
tendencies; and, in fact, in several instances an historical con- 
nection is unmistakable. Yet, notwithstanding the similarity, 
there remains a wide divergence. The unfolding of the later life 
of Hellenism is much tamer, more prosaic, and also, it is true, 
more moderate, than that of the modern world. While here the 
individual, with the self-conscious vigour of youth, rises superior 
to the world, and would fain draw it wholly within his grasp, in- 
deed, shape it to his own will, man in the Hellenistic epoch looks 
upon the world as something unalterable; he attempts no 
changes in the traditional culture, he aims only to give it a new 
direction, by connecting it more forcibly with his subjective 
feeling and reflection. This difference between an age which, if 
not venerable was yet becoming senile, and one which is fresh, 
aspiring, and exultant in its creative power, so alters all the 
manifestations of life that the similarity of the two never amounts 
to agreement. 

Such an intellectual situation involves a characteristic phil- 
osophy. This does not strive for new glimpses into the heart of 
things, nor for a renovation of the whole of civilisation. But it 
holds out to individuals the promise of a secure footing in life 
and a trustworthy chart for life's guidance; it aims to help men 



80 HELLENISM 

to happiness and to make them self-reliant; and for the culti- 
vated world it becomes the chief instructress in morality. This 
practical tendency, it is true, comes fully into play only in the 
course of centuries and under the influence of the Romans; it is 
not given undue prominence in the merely fragmentary records 
we possess of the early movement. Undeniably, however, at a 
time subsequent to the classical systems the individual and his 
craving for happiness form the pivot about which everything 
revolves. 

It is also significant of the change that now a small number of 
convictions are at once formulated into a dogmatic creed which 
thenceforth persists through a number of centuries, while pre- 
viously every achievement of thought immediately called forth 
further developments and also reactions. What the general in- 
tellectual life of the Hellenistic age shows in a striking manner 
the philosophy also exhibits, namely, that the great epoch-mak- 
ing heroes, with their high-souled aims of regenerating human- 
ity, are replaced by aggregates of individual powers, by the for- 
mation, that is, of small societies of the nature of sects. Ac- 
cordingly, as the plan of this work necessitates comparative 
brevity, we shall be justified in confining ourselves to the two 
principal schools of the Stoics and the Epicureans. The con- 
trast they present corresponds to the twofold relation which 
man, once he has ceased to be a part of the world, may assume 
toward it. Either he may boldly defy the world, or he may 
make the surrender of himself to it as agreeable as possible. In 
the one case, he will seek for true happiness by rising superior to 
the influence of his surroundings, and by attaining, through 
union with universal reason, an imperturbable independence 
and an inner mastery over things. In the other, he will avoid all 
conflict with the world, and find his pleasure in a clever use of 
what life provides. Both tendencies have a similar starting- 
point, and they frequently coincide in their results; but in their 
attitude toward life they are irreconcilable, and the conflict be- 
tween them lasts until the close of antiquity. It will be more ex- 
pedient to begin with the Epicurean school, because it adheres 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 81 

tenaciously to a simple, fundamental type through all the vicis- 
situdes of centuries without becoming involved in other move- 
ments. 

(b) The Epicureans 

The Epicurean school displays in a marked degree the char- 
acter of a guild or sect, little affected by the vicissitudes of time. 
The life-work of the master, Epicurus (341-342 — 270), exerted 
a supreme influence. Not only was the image of his personality 
retained as a living presence, but even the formulas in which he 
summed up his philosophy preserved from generation to gener- 
ation their authoritative force. Besides Epicurus, we may men- 
tion the Roman poet, Lucretius (97-96 — 55), whose warmth of 
conviction and fervid style made him — as late as the eighteenth 
century — a favourite with circles affected by the Enlightenment. 

The popular conception of the Epicureans is badly distorted. 
They readily appeared, and appear, as the champions of every 
kind of indulgence, while in truth their aim was merely to free 
men from all the entanglements of a responsible share in the 
world's work, and to provide them, within the sphere of a pri- 
vate circle, with a calm and serene life. The result was 7 worldly 
wisdom of the fastidious sort that keeps everything vulgar at a 
distance. 

Hence, as compared with the classical systems, the sphere of 
life is here narrowly restricted. It is not from any desire to 
understand the nature of things that Epicurus occupies himself 
with the problems which the world presents, but in order that 
knowledge may free him from the illusions which weigh life 
down and embitter joy. First and foremost he attacks the doc- 
trine of an interference in human affairs by supernatural powers; 
for life can never be calmly and serenely enjoyed so long as the 
bugbear of eternity stares us in the face. Epicurus does not 
deny that there are gods; on the contrary, he reveres them as 
ideals of celestial life. But we are not to suppose that the gods 
trouble themselves about us and our world. They could neither 
dwell in perfect bliss, were they constantly occupied with human 



82 HELLENISM 

affairs; nor, if they really exercised such providence, would the 
evil that pervades the world be explicable. That, however, we 
have no need to assume a divine government is shown by science, 
since this proves that everything in the world takes place natu- 
rally, and that such order and system as things possess may be 
sufficiently explained from their own nature. Thus, natural 
science is the liberator of man from the delusions and oppres- 
sions of superstition; it is the irreconcilable foe of the fear of the 
gods which has brought upon mankind so much hatred, pas- 
sion, and misery. 

But Epicurus rejects all philosophical fetters no less emphat- 
ically than the religious ones. The metaphysical bondage is rep- 
resented by the doctrine of Fate, of a necessity that surrounds 
us with an inescapable compulsion. Fate, in fact, would result 
in a far more awful oppression than superstition. Self-direction 
and free choice are indispensable to human weal; freedom of 
the will, which was usually stoutly attacked, at a later time, by 
the gainsayers of a supernatural order, is here postulated as an 
essential condition of human happiness. Epicurus could hardly 
show more convincingly how much his concern about happiness 
hampers his theoretical studies. 

A system which so scrupulously avoids all complications has 
no place for immortality. Why should we want to live on at all, 
since there is ample opportunity to taste every kind of good 
thing during our present life? Having feasted to satiety, why 
should we not surrender to others our places at the table of life ? 
After all, life is conferred upon us only for use; with the expira- 
tion of our allotted time, let us cheerfully pass on the torch to 
other men. Death with its annihilation need not agitate us. 
The simplest reflection, in fact, teaches us that death can in no- 
wise touch us. For so long as we live, death has not come; and 
when it comes, we no longer exist. Why, then, should we pother 
about it? Hence there is nothing to prevent us from living 
wholly for the present, and seeking our whole happiness in our 
immediate surroundings. 

Such happiness, however, is not to be found without the con- 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 83 

stant use of insight; this alone teaches us a correct valuation of 
life's goods. Things have a value for us only when they convey 
pleasure or pain. Human effort cannot set itself any other goal 
than the pleasantest possible life. "The beginning and end of 
blissful life" is pleasure. But let not pleasure be blindly seized, 
just as it falls to us; it is not the first impression, but the full 
issue with all its consequences, that decides upon the worth of 
any experience; the consequences must be weighed and consid- 
ered; and it requires art to estimate and measure pleasures. 
What else can supply this art but philosophy ? 

Thus philosophy is converted into the art of life, in fact, into 
the technique of enjoyment. In appearance the task is not very 
intricate; but the difficulty increases with the execution, owing 
to the limitless resources of civilisation and to the taste of culti- 
vated people. Indulgence in pleasure must be refined by a 
process of selection — not to satisfy any moral appraisal, but in 
the interest of happiness itself. Thus, spiritual joys are to be 
preferred to sensuous ones ; inner goods to external, as being the 
purer and more lasting; and the control of the mind over en- 
joyments, the being able to enjoy without being compelled to in- 
dulge, yields more happiness than the slavish dependence upon 
pleasures. In fact, it is less the things, than himself, the culti- 
vated person, in the things, that a man enjoys; and the highest 
aim of all is less a positive pleasure than a freedom from pain 
and excitement, a serene peace, an unassailable repose of soul. 
But for this is needed moderation in the indulgence of appetite, 
and a proved clearness of vision and nobility of sentiment. For, 
"one cannot live agreeably without living intelligently, beauti- 
fully, and justly; nor intelligently, beautifully, and justly with- 
out living agreeably; for the virtues are intertwined with an 
agreeable life, and an agreeable life is inseparable from the vir- 
tues" (Epicurus). But the principal source of happiness will 
ever be the correct estimate of things, the liberation from the 
fear of the gods and from the dread of death, the knowledge that 
the good, rightly understood, is undoubtedly attainable, that 
pain, when severe, is usually brief, and when it lasts long, not 



84 HELLENISM 

sharp. A man with such convictions will "be disquieted neither 
awake nor asleep, but will live like a god among men." This 
view is developed into an elaborate doctrine of virtue, expressed 
in fastidious ethical maxims. Many of Epicurus's sayings 
were held in high esteem even by his opponents, and have 
been incorporated into the common store of worldly wisdom. 
That even this philosophy of pleasure is designed to make 
men superior to outward circumstances appears from the 
saying of Epicurus, that it is better for intelligent action to 
meet with misfortune than for imprudence to meet with 
success. 

The Epicurean demand that the individual should be com- 
pletely independent gives a peculiar form also to the recognition 
of social relations. Man is warned against forming any ties, on 
account of the inevitable complications. Thus, the Epicurean 
philosopher regards civic life with cold indifference. And in 
order to insure his immunity from that quarter, he advocates the 
absolute form of government. Likewise, marriage cannot attract 
him. So much the more, he advocates the free relations of in- 
dividuals, such as friendship, intellectual intercourse, and phil- 
anthropy. And this movement was not confined to a small circle; 
its organising power extended far and wide. "Epicurus and his 
disciples proselytised, and closely organised their society. It 
extended throughout the whole of Greece, a state within a state, 
having a fixed constitution, and held together not only by cor- 
respondence and itinerant preaching, but by the interchange of 
material assistance. Epicurus knew how to create an esprit de 
corps which has rightly been likened to that existing in the early 
Christian communities" (Ivo Bruns). Thus philosophy recog- 
nised that it had an important task to perform even in this field, 
namely, to bring together into new societies resembling religious 
communities the individuals which had been scattered like atoms 
by the breaking up of the old orders, and so to give them moral 
and religious support. 

But the effort to do justice to the Epicureans must not blind 
us to their narrow limitations. With them, man accepts the 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 85 

world as an established order, and adroitly and shrewdly accom- 
modates himself to it; an active, integral part of it, he never be- 
comes. Rather, in order to make sure of unalloyed happiness, 
he shuns all the turmoil and uncertainty of co-operative effort, 
and retreats within himself. Since, however, he considers only 
his own state of feeling, the inwardness into which he has with- 
drawn reveals to him no new world, nor are there any impulses 
or capacities produced which might arouse and develop his soul. 
This plan of merely utilising existing capacities offers nothing 
by way of compensation for all the inner and outer losses, except 
the reflection that at bottom evil is weak and the good strong; in 
other words, it cannot do without a large optimism; and, in fact, 
Epicurus adheres to optimism with all his strength. But, sup- 
pose that unreason and suffering cannot be so easily silenced ? 
Then the anticipated bliss of the wise man may quickly turn 
into an inner vacuity, into a hopeless pessimism. Furthermore, 
such a view of life implies presuppositions which it cannot itself 
justify, which, taken strictly, contradict it. It implies a highly 
developed state of civilisation, refined taste, and noble senti- 
ment, a joy in the good and the beautiful ; without all these life 
would become empty or rude. But Epicureanism does not tend 
to produce such a civilisation by its own toil and sacrifices : for 
the sensuous, natural being, above which its conceptions do not 
rise, there is arbitrarily substituted a cultivated personality 
swayed by moral and intellectual interests. Thus this view of 
life feeds as a parasite at strangers' tables; the labour of others 
must create what it forthwith appropriates to its own enjoyment, 
or, in meditation, resolves into maxims of prudence. Although 
Epicureanism may thus offer much to the individual at particu- 
lar epochs, on the whole it cannot inspire or produce anything; 
it remains a mere side-issue, a phenomenon accompanying a ma- 
ture, indeed an over-mature, civilisation; and, as such, we must 
expect it constantly to reappear in some new guise, and to find 
adherents. But all the shrewdness, cleverness, and amiability it 
possesses cannot compensate for its fatal lack of spiritual pro- 
ductivity. 



86 HELLENISM 



(c) The Stoics 

Incomparably more was accomplished for the problem of life 
by the Stoics; their school also shows far more inner movement. 
Although pure theory was gradually forced into the background, 
Stoicism preserved throughout a consistent character; during 
the early Christian centuries the tendency toward the practical 
and parenetical wholly gained the upper hand; and the moral 
reformation which later antiquity undertook by reviving classi- 
cal ideals owned the leadership of the Stoics. It must be our 
effort to bring into relief the common character which unites the 
various historical phases and the several individual peculiarities. 

What the Stoa historically achieved for the problem of life was 
to give morals a scientific basis, and to elevate ethical problems 
to a position of complete independence and of recognised pre- 
eminence. In respect of morals, the Stoics did not merely fur- 
ther develop transmitted data, not merely consolidate more firmly 
existing elements; rather, an elaborate and specific doctrine of 
morals, such as they supplied, had not previously existed at all, 
not even in the Socratic school, i. e., not in a scientific form. 
For, although the Cynics taught that happiness arises exclusively 
from excellence, they disdained all theoretical inquiry, and there- 
fore were without any fundamental philosophical views: with 
s,uch a beginning morals could not become a world-power. But, 
with the starting-point of the Stoics, it could ; since for them there 
was no such thing as moral conduct without a foundation of 
theoretical convictions and a coherent sytem of thought. 

Stoicism is more closely related to the classical way of think- 
ing than the first impression might lead one to suppose; the 
principal difference is that the Stoics considered everything more 
in the abstract, and worked out their conclusions mainly by med- 
itation. Thus, they regarded man as a member of the great 
world, only not as in so close and obvious a relation to it; the 
world as a realm of reason, but less as a harmonious work of art 
than as a system of logical order and appropriate arrangement; 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 87 

man as by nature impelled and qualified to comprehend univer- 
sal reason, but rather in general thoughts than as manifest 
throughout the infinite detail of the actual world. Even with 
this view, man derives the problem of life from his own rational 
endowment, from his faculty of thought. The universe is much 
too rigidly organised and too strictly self-contained for man's 
acts to alter the condition of things or to direct their course into 
new channels. But the thinking being can take up either one of 
two attitudes toward the world. It makes a vast difference 
whether one lets the world's happenings pass over him unfeel- 
ingly and stolidly, and performs whatever he has to do under 
the blind compulsion of its superior force, or whether one intelli- 
gently masters the world, inwardly assimilates it, comprehends 
its necessities, and so transforms their compulsion into freedom. 
Here is a point of intimate personal decision, which, at the same 
time, draws a line of distinction between men. Whatever must 
happen, will happen; but whether it occurs without us, and in 
spite of us, or whether it takes place with our concurrence, 
changes radically the character of life, and decides whether we 
are the slaves or the masters of things. In free obedience lies the 
unique greatness of man. "To obey God is freedom" (Seneca). 

But we can find satisfaction in the thought of the world only 
when all doubt is removed from the rationality of the universe; 
only then has the will a good and sufficient reason to adapt itself 
to the order of the world. Hence an important part, indeed an 
indispensable presupposition, of the Stoic view is the justifying 
of the state of the world, the dispelling of the appearance of un- 
reason which the first impression creates. It seemed, indeed, 
particularly in later times, as if the philosopher were called upon, 
like an advocate, to defend the Deity against accusations, and to 
recommend the world to mankind as something good and ac- 
ceptable. Thus arose the notion of a theodicy, to which, it is 
true, Leibniz first gave the name. 

In the working out of this principal thought, various lines of 
reflection cross, and also merge into, one another. In the first 
place, the idea of a thorough-going causal connection, of a uni- 



88 HELLENISM 

versal conformity to law, was so energetically defended that it 
forthwith became an integral part of the scientific consciousness. 
This causal order, however, appeared to the Stoics as being at 
the same time the expression of a divine government; they 
argued that there must be a Deity underlying the world, since a 
universe, which has animate parts, must also be animate as 
a whole. Furthermore, the Deity has adapted the world to 
rational beings, and even included individuals in his care. Such 
evil as exists is only a secondary consequence of the development 
of the world, and even this subordinate result is turned to good 
by the divine reason. The unreconciled, even unreconcilable, 
elements in these processes of reasoning do not trouble the 
Stoics. For their convictions spring far less from any theoreti- 
cal demonstration than from a faith which is indispensable to 
their spiritual self-preservation. They are strengthened and 
confirmed in this faith, moreover, by the practical problem it 
imposes upon them, since the solution of this absorbs their 
whole energy. 

The contemplation of universal reason can lead us to complete 
freedom and complete happiness only if our whole being goes 
out in thought, and everything is excluded from it that would 
make us dependent upon external conditions. But feeling and 
the emotions cause such a dependence, since they involve us in 
all the turmoil and misery of existence. The chief reason for 
their influence is a false valuation of things. For the evils, like 
the rest, of the outside world, have a power only over the person 
who wrongly ascribes reality to them: "it is not things that dis- 
quiet us, but our opinions about things" (Epictetus). To over- 
come this tendency to put a false value upon things is itself an act 
that demands the fullest exertion of our powers. Thus, think- 
ing itself becomes conduct; it is no mere theorising, but cease- 
less activity, a putting away of all lassitude, an effort of our 
whole being; in a word, it is a thought-action which inseparably 
unites wisdom and virtue, in fact fuses them into one. This 
thought-action alone yields true happiness; whoever seeks for 
happiness in the outer world, and thus becomes exposed to the 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 89 

impressions of things, whoever is bent on enjoyment, and so 
falls a prey to greed and fear, sinks into certain misery. Not 
only excessive emotion, but every kind and degree of emotion, 
all pleasure and sorrow, all desire and fear, must be put away 
by a manly soul. Adversity becomes even valuable as a training 
in virtue, which if unexercised easily falls asleep: it is a mis- 
fortune never to meet with misfortune. The goddess Fortuna 
customarily bestows her favours upon commonplace natures; 
the great man is called to triumph over great obstacles and great 
vicissitudes. One's attitude toward the griefs of others, as well 
as toward his own, should not be sentimental, but active; let us 
give help swiftly by deed, but not be betrayed into sympathetic 
lamenting and wailing which profits no one. Let perfect " apathy ' ' 
rule, i. e., not a dull insensibility, but an unmovable firmness, an 
elimination of all sympathetic feeling. 

Such a liberation from the power of temporal destiny includes 
the right freely to cast life itself away, so soon as it no longer 
affords the conditions of a rational activity. Suicide does not 
appear here as an act of despair, but as a matter of calm con- 
sideration and as an exercise of moral freedom. And as the 
Greek thinkers made their lives conform to their convictions, so 
there were several of the leaders of the Stoa who met voluntary 
deaths. To the great majority of the Stoics death indeed did 
not mean complete extinction. Individual souls, they thought, 
will continue to exist until the periodically recurring universal 
conflagration brings them back to the Deity, the substratum of 
all things. But even the thought of total extinction contains 
nothing terrifying. For the mere length of time effects no change 
in happiness. The virtuous man possesses already, and for so 
long as he lives, all the blessedness of Deity. 

Thus, in theory, everything fits easily and smoothly together; 
life seems removed from every source of danger. But the Stoics 
by no means underestimated the difficulty of the practical 
problem. With them, the characteristic joy in creative activity, 
which distinguished the work of the classical thinkers, disap- 
pears; existence acquires a profound seriousness, and life seems 



9 o HELLENISM 

filled with toil and struggle. The conception of life as a conflict 
(vivere est militare) owes its origin particularly to this source, 
whence it has passed into the common consciousness of man- 
kind. 

The thinker is called upon to contend first against his envi- 
ronment, which is dominated by the false valuation of things; 
so let the judgment of the multitude be treated with indiffer- 
ence, and let no one fear to use even the harshest paradoxes. 
Grave dangers arise also from the effeminacy and excessive re- 
finement of civilisation; to this tendency the Stoics oppose a 
high regard for homely conditions, for the simple, indeed rude, 
state of nature. More zealously, however, than against external 
conditions, the thinker must contend against himself, against the 
perils in his own nature. For the deadly enemy of true happi- 
ness, namely, a compliant attitude toward things, ever lurks in 
his breast, and entices him to abandon his high aims: this enemy 
must be combated with untiring vigilance and invincible cour- 
age. Such inner courage becomes the chief characteristic of the 
virtuous man; perfect virtue is heroism, greatness of soul. The 
hero rises far above the average of his fellows; the destruction 
of the world could not move him; his conduct is a drama for the 
gods. But in his supreme eminence he isolates himself from 
men and things; he attains less a dominion over the world than 
an indifference toward it; he remains rather in premeditation of 
activity, in preparedness for conduct, than exerts his power in 
actual doing, in which it would be fully spent. The question in- 
evitably arises, how many will actually soar to the height of 
heroes, how many will possess the power to liberate themselves ? 
For the Stoics rest the whole of life upon this one point of moral 
power. Whither shall man turn, and on what shall he found his 
hope, if he becomes conscious of falling far short of the goal, 
and feels the helplessness of his own faculties ? 

So the Stoic view of life contains much that is problematical. 
Yet behind it all there remains, as a permanent service of the 
highest value, the discovery and development of an independent 
ethics. In the decision to rise to the plane of universal reason, 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 91 

in the act of free obedience, we have the work of the whole, the 
inner, man; therein is revealed man's capacity to act as a self 
transcending his particular faculties, and to make his whole 
existence dependent upon his own deed. Such an inner deed is 
far superior to all outward activity. Inwardness thus attains 
complete independence; a depth of soul is discovered and made 
the chief aim of all endeavour. A number of important changes 
result. Self-knowledge acquires the sense of an examination 
and judgment of the inner constitution of man; conceptions 
such as consciousness and conscience become fully clear and 
attain a fixed meaning; and the worth of conduct is now deter- 
mined by the disposition alone. 

At the same time, the supremacy of morals is fully recognised. 
Notwithstanding all the paradoxes, we have here simple and 
unassailable truths. The morally good alone may be called 
good; compared with virtue, all life's other values are as nought; 
it alone gives true happiness. Likewise, the distinction between 
good and evil is accentuated to the point of a complete antithe- 
sis; all transitions and mediations disappear; throughout life 
man is confronted with an abrupt, Either — Or. And the deci- 
sion is not according to one's mere liking. For above us reigns 
the universal law, demanding our obedience. Mightier than 
ever before rises the idea of duty, which now acquires a definite 
meaning and a distinct name. 

But the conduct of life was not only spiritualised by the 
Stoics; it was also universalised by them in a manner new to 
antiquity. When the inner aspect of conduct is elevated to 
a position of supreme importance, all the differences among men 
pale before the fact of their common humanity. It is now both 
possible and necessary for men to esteem and to labour for one 
another merely as men ; for it is not so much the particular state 
or nation that binds us together as it is the universal reason. 
In this way arises a humanitarian or cosmopolitan ethics. What 
the earlier Stoics taught on this point was actually felt and prac- 
tically carried out by the thinkers of the time of the Roman 
Emperors. The idea of a fraternal community of all men be- 



92 HELLENISM 

comes a power; the metaphor of the organism is extended from 
the state to the whole of humanity, and all rational beings 
appear as members of one body; human nature is respected 
even in its least worthy representatives, and the common hu- 
manity in an enemy is loved. Thus the conception of philan- 
thropy, which was unknown to Plato and Aristotle, is added to 
the world's moral consciousness. All men are citizens of a uni- 
versal empire of reason. "The world is the common fatherland 
of all men" (Musonius). "As Antoninus, Rome is home and 
fatherland to me; as man, the universe" (Marcus Aurelius). 
The growth of the idea of God increases the warmth of humani- 
tarian feeling. As children of one Father, we should hold to- 
gether, and fraternally love and help one another. From such 
a fellowship there flows a stream of humane sentiment even into 
the general conditions of life, where it tends to suppress slavery, 
and to promote the care of the poor and the sick. Emperor and 
slaves alike are included and united in the same forward move- 
ment. Now, too, a common natural law, superior to the special 
laws of individual states, is recognised and developed ; and of its 
effects we have ample evidence in Roman law. 

The Stoic view of things has a limitation, it is true, in the fact 
that all it achieves lies within a given world; it makes no at- 
tempt to establish a new community, or to marshal all the indi- 
vidual forces to a combined attack upon unreason. So far as the 
ancient world is concerned, the tendency toward philanthropy 
and cosmopolitanism remains a matter of individual feeling and 
conviction rather than becomes a general movement. But even 
so, it had its value; for it forms the beginning of all further 
development. 

The history of the Stoa does not fall within the plan of the 
present work. But it may be noted that the progress of cen- 
turies has brought out only the more distinctly the unsolved 
problems and the defects of the system, such as the discrepancy 
between the over-wrought ideal and the actual conduct of men, 
the want of any positive content to life, the isolation of the indi- 
vidual, and the rigorous suppression of all feeling. Even in 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 93 

earlier times there were not wanting accommodations, relaxing 
the severity of the strict principles; but these concessions only 
gave rise to fresh complications. By lowering themselves from 
the lofty ideal of life of the wise man to promulgate a set of rules 
designed for mediocrity, the Stoics became the originators of the 
precarious doctrine of a twofold morals; and by recognising any 
sort of an admissible supposition (probabilis ratio) as a sufficient 
argument, instead of attempting a strict scientific deduction, they 
introduced the ill-famed probabilism. 

Yet, notwithstanding all the obstacles and limitations, the 
Stoa fought a good fight, and, particularly in the early Christian 
centuries, proved itself to be the nucleus of a moral reformation. 
No more than others could it ignore the fact that the times were 
altered, and that the problem of happiness was pressed into the 
foreground with ever greater insistence and passion. To the 
Stoics of the time of the Roman Emperors, philosophy became 
primarily a support and a solace amid the unrest and the mis- 
eries of the age; the retreat into the inmost self, the awakening 
of the divine that dwells in every man, promised a sure liberation 
from all evil, and the prize of pure happiness. Thought here 
soars above time and sense, to rest in the eternity of an invisible 
order. But all the soaring of the spirit, all the self-exhortation 
of the sage, cannot restrain an overwhelming sense of the empti- 
ness and worthlessness of human existence. Thus we see, e. g., 
the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the last eminent Stoic, tossed 
hither and thither by conflicting moods. In the Meditations, 
which introduced the monologue into literature, he extols the 
glory of the world and the dignity of man. "The soul traverses 
the whole world and the void that surrounds it and its total 
structure, and it reaches into the infinity of eternity and com- 
prehends the periodic re-birth of all things." Eternity may be- 
come fully present in human conduct. For in the deed of the 
moment the whole life, the past and the future, may be com- 
prehended. So man should raise himself above all that is petty, 
and "live as upon a mountain." But the thought of the posses- 
sion of eternity and infinitude may easily assume the meaning 



94 HELLENISM 

that all temporal things weigh as nothing in the balance, and 
that there is no powerful motive to action. Nothing new is 
achieved, notwithstanding all the appearance of development. 
"He who has seen the present has seen all that was throughout 
eternity, and that will be throughout eternity. For it is all one 
in kind and form." "Whoever is forty years of age, if he but 
possess some understanding, has in some sort seen all the past 
and future according to its homogeneity." But where all eager 
interest has so completely disappeared, human existence is vain. 
"The world is incessant change and life mere opinion." In- 
deed, the admission of this futility appears to be the surest safe- 
guard against every kind of unrest and danger; hence the dis- 
position arises to represent not only life's sorrows but also its 
joys as wholly insignificant. "The whole earth is a point"; 
"Everything human is smoke"; "Human life is a dream and 
a journey in a strange land"; "Soon eternity will hide all." 

Such moods tell of a languid and an enfeebled age. Where 
man thinks so meanly of himself and of his task the buoyancy 
and energy of life are speedily exhausted; there remains no 
power of successful resistance to life's inner desolation, nor to 
the sudden decline of civilisation. The age of the systems of 
worldly wisdom was, in fact, over. They had their mission in 
an epoch of richer and more luxurious civilisation. At such a 
time they disclosed to the individual the inner wealth of his own 
nature, and gave him a stay and support within himself which 
raised him above the vicissitudes of the world. They eagerly 
undertook the moral education of mankind; they not only pro- 
duced writings which reached all classes, and exerted an uplift- 
ing influence upon beliefs, but they also afforded personal ex- 
amples of living which inspired reverence. But a movement 
based primarily upon subjective reflection and individual im- 
pulse proved inadequate the moment the structure of civilisation 
began to totter and man had to take up the fight for his spiritual 
existence; in short, confronted by radical innovations, the sys- 
tems of worldly wisdom broke down. Still, they produced fruit- 
ful results which extended far beyond their immediate circle and 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 95 

their own time. Early Christianity drew in large measure from 
the Stoic ethics; the modern Enlightenment also fell back upon 
the Stoics; and, notwithstanding all the differences in intellectual 
conditions, such men as Hugo Grotius, Descartes, Spinoza, and 
even Kant and Fichte, display kinship with them. Not only 
have individual works of this school become a permanent part 
of the world's literature, but the whole view of life here devel- 
oped has maintained itself in history as an independent type of 
a manly and dignified sort. 

II. RELIGIOUS SPECULATION 

(a) The Trend Toward Religion 

The last great achievement of antiquity was a movement 
toward religion and religious speculation. We cannot estimate 
this development so lightly, as is still frequently done; we see in 
it far more than a mere decline of intellectual energy, or a loss 
by Hellenism of its true character. For even if the movement, 
viewed broadly, presents an unattractive picture, exhibiting much 
that is depressing and barren, in the background nobler forces, 
spiritual necessities, are at work; and in the end, creative activity 
rises out of the chaos to a height which had not been attained 
since Plato. The age was weary of cultivated life; and the re- 
ligious movement shared in the general exhaustion. But the 
new tendency did not end in weariness. Rather, it gradually 
manifested an original vital impulse; the yearning for positive 
happiness, for the realisation and satisfaction of the self, which 
had been so long stifled, again passionately asserted itself. At 
the same time, the minds of men were seized with a vague dread, 
a tormenting anxiety, concerning the invisible relations of life 
and their consequences; hence a disquieting fear of dark powers 
and eternal punishment spread upon all sides. Man was shaken 
to the depths of his being; but the very shock itself called forth 
a faith in the indestructibility of his nature, and impelled him to 
seek passionately for new paths. Such a state of feeling could 
find no satisfaction in the systems of worldly wisdom with their 



96 HELLENISM 

passive surrender to the course of the world, their reduction of 
life to calm contemplation, their repression of all strong emotion. 
Likewise, the last revival of ancient civilisation in the second 
century after Christ, with its return to the old standards of taste 
and its preference for formal culture, offered nothing upon the 
questions that then stirred men's hearts: all the outward splen- 
dour of the revival but thinly veiled its inner hollowness. With 
the third century the illusion also vanished, and there followed 
a sudden collapse. Even art, the most faithful companion of the 
spirit of Hellenism, now loses its power; the last prominent fig- 
ure is that of Caracalla (d. 217). 

In the third century, accordingly, the field was left wholly to 
the religious movement; after slowly gathering headway since 
the beginning of our era, the new tendency now burst forth in 
a mighty conflagration. And the third century also produced, 
and upon Greek soil, the only great philosopher of the move- 
ment, the sovereign-minded Plotinus. But properly to appre- 
ciate his greatness, we must first glance at his predecessors. 

Philosophy, by sharing in the trend toward religion, again 
gained a closer touch with its surroundings. For, although the 
enlightenment of the Hellenistic period had crowded religion 
out of the intellectual sphere, it had not eradicated it from the 
usages nor from the hearts of the people. And now that an ap- 
proach again took place between the cultured class and the 
multitude, the old religious tradition acquired a new value, al- 
though, it is true, not without the boldest revisions of the in- 
herited doctrine. 

But philosophy also possessed connections with religion in its 
own traditions. The highly cultivated were for the most part 
adherents of Platonism, the religious side of which now first 
attained its full development. Furthermore, Orphic and Pythag- 
orean doctrines displayed a strong power of attraction; they 
kindled a longing for the liberation of the soul sunk in sensuous- 
ness, and offered in compensation not only an ascetic life, but a 
faith in miracles and divinations. To these were added power- 
ful influences from the Orient, chiefly in the form, at first, of 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 97 

curious and even repulsive cults, which none the less yielded a 
fruitful stimulus to the world of thought. 

Thus there was produced a decidedly mixed atmosphere; old 
and new, absurdity and wisdom, mingled in it in confusion. 
The manner in which the various factors could be united in the 
same personality, and the leaning toward religion be harmoni- 
ously combined with a retention of the wealth of the old civilisa- 
tion, is strikingly shown in the figure of the refined, serious, and 
gentle Plutarch (c. 50-120 a.d.). It would be difficult to find 
elsewhere such a happy picture of the religious moods of the age 
as is contained in his treatise, "On Isis and Osiris." 

The new religious movement — also in this instance we must 
unite the various phenomena in a comprehensive view — exhibits 
above all an altered attitude toward the problem of evil. It will 
be remembered that the Greek thinkers showed a pronounced 
tendency to treat evil as a subordinate consequence of the moral 
order of the world, and that the Stoics in particular did their 
utmost to resolve it into an illusive appearance; now, however, 
a potent reality is assigned to it. Since, if God were the cause 
of all things, nothing evil could exist, the unreason of the world 
must have had some other origin; exaggerating an old view, 
sensuous matter with its unintelligibility is accordingly regarded 
as the source. Evil no longer appears as a force which willingly 
yields to the good, but as a hostile power dividing the universe 
in twain. The world becomes the arena of a fierce, irreconcil- 
able conflict. The great cleavage which disrupts the universe 
is repeated in man; in him also reason and sense are ever at 
variance, ever involved in a feud. The more closely classical 
antiquity had interwoven the sensuous and the spiritual in a 
single life-process, the greater the determination with which they 
are now sundered. Disgust at the ever-increasing refinement of 
the sensuous life seems to have seized entire circles of people; 
it was impossible to go to excess in denouncing the same varied 
richness of life which had previously enchanted the Greek spirit. 

Amid such changes, although at first silently and impercep- 
tibly, the position and content of religion become shifted. While 



98 HELLENISM 

at an earlier time, and even for a Plato, religion was closely con- 
nected with the intellectual life, and the entering upon a relation- 
ship with the divine was held to uplift all human endeavour, now 
religion begins to separate itself from everything else; it prom- 
ises man a new and higher life, but demands in exchange the 
allegiance of his whole soul. Here there arises for the first time 
a specific religion and even religiosity. To turn to the Deity 
now means to renounce entirely the impure and inconstant 
world; all other aims sink out of sight before the one great 
summons. 

There is a change, likewise, in the character and position of 
the Deity. Perfect Purity ought not to concern itself directly 
with a discordant world; a transcendent majesty is its due, a 
complete aloofness, an exaltation high above all human concep- 
tions. But there exists at the same time a fervid longing to se- 
cure some form of access to the divine. Thus nothing remains 
but a mediation by intermediate powers of superhuman though 
subdivine character; hence the doctrine of spirits, which pos- 
sessed a basis in the popular faith, and was also made use of 
incidentally by Plato, now attained an enormous influence and 
absorbed men's minds with a steadily increasing insistence. 
Man believed himself to be surrounded on every hand by such 
mediate beings, and to be everywhere dependent upon their help. 
But with the good spirits were associated evil ones, who tor- 
mented him and made him afraid ; so that all his going and com- 
ing was encompassed by a conflict of invisible powers. In the 
view of the throng this fear sank to a vulgar belief in ghosts, and 
the heavy mist of superstition cast a gloom over the light of 
knowledge. Subjective emotion surged in the breast without 
restraint; the passions of a heart engrossed with its own happi- 
ness crowded out the calm consideration of material needs and 
the rational organisation of existence. In its stead there begins 
the development of a life of religious feeling. The idea of a trans- 
cendent Deity gives to human meditation a tendency toward 
vague yearning, and also at times the character of a dreamy 
hope; the immediate world becomes a mere preparation, the 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 99 

symbol of a higher reality hidden from the common gaze. But 
there is no ascent to this world of divine truth without a com- 
plete purification from the sensuous; the subjection of the sen- 
suous to the ends of the spirit no longer suffices ; rather, its com- 
plete eradication is an indispensable condition of the highest 
good, viz., fellowship with God. 

But, notwithstanding all the changes, the Greek character is 
still preserved in the fact that the fellowship with God is under- 
stood to be knowledge of God; for the Greeks never ceased to 
look upon knowledge as the essence of the life of the spirit. Still, 
the knowledge must be of a peculiar kind if it is to grasp super- 
natural or pure being. At first the prospect of success seems 
slight; since "for the souls of men, encumbered with bodies and 
passions, there is no sharing in the life of God ; only a faint hint 
may be obtained by philosophical thought" (Plutarch). More 
confident appears the hope that what is hidden from our logical 
reasoning may possibly become accessible to immediate intuition 
in a state of "enthusiasm" or "ecstasy." In this state, where 
man ceases from all effort of his own, and becomes a mere vessel 
for the divine revelation, the divine light may reach him unob- 
scured. This light illuminates the historical religion also, the 
"myth," and discovers in it a profound truth. For as the rain- 
bow is a vari-coloured reflection of the sunlight upon a dark cloud, 
so the myth is a reflection of divine reason in our understanding 
(Plutarch). Thus the cultivated man, too, may hold the popular 
religion in honour; if he illuminates it through and through with 
the most perfect insight, he will be able to find the true mean 
between disbelief (a^ecm;?) and superstition (8ei<n8aifAovia). 

Accordingly, even in the religious movement a philosophical 
aim maintains itself, while in individuals piety and joy in knowl- 
edge are often harmoniously united. Nevertheless, in general, 
philosophical effort is not only outwardly seriously repressed, 
but it bears within itself the contradiction of forcing the new 
ways of thinking into the old, unsuitable forms; the movement 
fails as yet to transcend eclecticism and syncretism; it lacks an 
inner fusion and an organised development of the new bodies of 



ioo HELLENISM 

thought. This was reserved for neo-Platonism, or rather, for 
Plotinus. 

Before we turn to him, however, let us briefly notice the at- 
tempt to evolve a religious philosophy with the aid of an histori- 
cal religion, viz., Judaism. In the national tradition of Juda- 
ism, religion possessed a far greater importance and was more 
rigidly self-contained; it opposed to philosophy far greater in- 
dependence. But, at a time of the triumphant supremacy of 
Greek civilisation, it was impelled to seek a reconciliation with 
philosophy, alike by the personal need of the cultivated man to 
justify his faith before the bar of reason, and by the desire, not 
yet eradicated by bloody violence, to make his ancestral religion 
the common property of all men. In this effort a place of special 
prominence must be assigned to Philo of Alexandria (c. 25 B.C. 
to 50 a.d.), who was the first to undertake on a grand scale the 
fusion into one whole of the faith of the Orient and the wisdom 
of the Greeks; in this attempt he entered upon a path upon 
which he has found followers for centuries. His own achieve- 
ment is of a broad and discriminating character, but it does not 
rise above the plane of skilful combination to that of constructive 
work. 

In the union of these two worlds of thought Judaism supplied 
a fixed body of doctrines and usages, an historical view of 
things, a community of an ethico-religious character, a piety 
already becoming inward; Hellenism, on the other hand, con- 
tributed universal concepts, a strong impetus away from the 
narrowly human toward the cosmic, a thirst for knowledge, a de- 
light in beauty. In their mutual interaction, the Hebraic ele- 
ment received enlargement and a new intellectuality, the Hel- 
lenic concentration and a spiritual inwardness; but in the total 
result the opposing elements were forced together rather than 
harmonised. 

Among the resulting changes in the view of the world par- 
ticularly noteworthy is the altered position of the Platonic Ideas. 
For Plato, these were independent sovereign forms; with Philo, 
they become thoughts of the Divine Spirit. Accordingly, we 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 101 

here not only have a unity as a source of all multiplicity, but the 
whole of reality is upborne and animated by a universal Spirit. 
Likewise, mighty movements were introduced by the fact that 
the powers mediating between the Deity and mankind were 
combined into the unity of the "Logos," the first-born Son of 
God. 

As regards the view of life, the Stoic ideal of the imperturbable 
sage is fused with that of the devoutly pious man. Common to 
both is the withdrawal from the world and the concentration 
upon the moral aim. Now, however, the Greek element present 
in the new ideal appears in the desire for deeper knowledge, even 
of the Deity, and also in the desire to base conduct upon rational 
insight; in the denunciation of all the things of sense as un- 
clean, and in the conviction that everything that shares in 
change sins. Judaism, on the other hand, contributes a more 
direct relation of life to God, a stronger sense of obligation, and 
an intensity of personal feeling. The whole of life here appears 
under the figure of a service of God; we may approach the spirit 
of sublimity only by perfect artlessness and simplicity of heart, 
just as the high priest lays aside his gorgeous robes and clothes 
himself in simple linen when he enters the holy of holies. And 
as the common relation to God binds men closer together, so 
the doing and the suffering of the one may avail for another ; the 
sage appears not only as a support, but as an atonement, a ran- 
som (Xvrpov) for the bad man. 

Peace and amity between the two worlds of thought could not 
have reigned in this manner without the introduction of an expe- 
dient to moderate the antagonisms and lessen the shock of their 
conflict. This was found in an allegorical interpretation of the 
belief handed down by religious tradition, that beneath the let- 
ter was hidden a spirit accessible only to profound insight. Such 
a procedure was not wholly new in philosophy. Plato and 
Aristotle incidentally made use of it, in order to bring their doc- 
trines into harmony with popular beliefs; and the Stoics had 
treated the myth in this manner throughout. But the method 
first acquired considerable importance when religion appeared 



102 HELLENISM 

with a fixed tradition and a compact doctrinal content, and 
when, in consequence, its collision with philosophy created seri- 
ous anxiety. Now, however, the allegorical interpretation be- 
came a chief means of reconciliation; in fact, with its adjustment 
of individual freedom and general conformity, theoretical in- 
vestigation and historical authority, it profoundly affected the 
whole attitude toward life. The letter of tradition was nowhere 
tampered with; it remained an inviolable canon. But the free- 
dom of interpretation permitted philosophy to make of it what 
it found to be necessary; all the difficulties of inflexibility disap- 
peared, and strictness of method gave place to the free sway of 
fantasy. In this process, present and past, time and eternity, 
subjective moods and objective facts, are constantly confounded; 
a mysterious twilight closes in about us, and life assumes a 
dreamy aspect. This dreaminess persists throughout the Mid- 
dle Ages, and is dispelled only by the energetic conduct of life in 
the modern era. 

Thus, in this instance also, Greek philosophy is operative be- 
yond the national boundaries in spiritualising and universalising 
life. Yet everything that the Hellenistic period accomplished up 
to the beginning of the third century after Christ is mere patch- 
work; reflection and simple combination usurp the place of 
spontaneous creation; we have popular philosophy instead of 
systematic, constructive work. Plotinus brings the change; for 
in him there again appears a thinker of the first rank. 

(b) Plotinus 

(a) INTRODUCTORY 

In the whole line of great thinkers there is not one about whom 
the judgment of men has been and is so divided as it is about 
Plotinus, the founder of neo-Platonism (205-279). His truly 
great achievements are so inextricably interwoven with what is 
problematic, and even certainly erroneous, that complete con- 
currence concerning him is nearly everywhere excluded; more- 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 103 

over, philosophy with Plotinus remains too much a matter of 
broad outlines; there is no advance from a general view of the 
world to exact knowledge; finally, his whole system is pervaded 
with the conflict between a soaring abstraction and a profoundly 
intimate emotional life. Plotinus, therefore, if his actual 
achievement be regarded, falls far behind the other great think- 
ers; but if we penetrate to the forces underlying his work and 
follow his influence upon the development of the intellectual 
world, we must hold him equal to the best. For then there ap- 
pear, often concealed beneath highly questionable assertions, 
new and fruitful intuitions; in fact, even error now and then 
serves as the lever of important discoveries. Intuition consti- 
tutes the true greatness of Plotinus; and this is nowhere so ap- 
parent as in his view of life. The impression of supreme spiritual 
power which emanates from him increases in proportion as we 
realise how unfavourable were the influences of his age; these 
must inevitably have restrained the freedom of investigation, 
and fostered the doubtful and fantastic rather than the true and 
valuable elements of his work. There is, indeed, no more splen- 
did witness to the power of the Greek spirit than the fact that 
Plotinus could rise to such a height of contemplation from such 
miserable intellectual surroundings. Moreover, the profound 
influence upon humanity of his work as a whole is incontestable; 
here we have in its original conception, and in the clearness of 
its primitive state, much that has moved mankind throughout 
nearly two thousand years. Particularly in his influence upon 
the attitude toward life, Plotinus is without a peer; here he 
marks the boundary between two worlds. 

Viewed historically, his work appears at first as a continua- 
tion and completion of the ascetic movement which dominated 
later antiquity with steadily increasing exclusiveness. But it 
was with Plotinus that the movement first became strong enough 
to result in a new construction of reality and the creation of a 
characteristic view of the world. In fact, the trend toward re- 
ligion here undergoes an ennobling transmutation of its inmost 
contents. Hitherto it had been dominated by undue solicitude 



104 HELLENISM 

for the happiness of the individual; infinitude and a transcend- 
ent world were proclaimed merely in order to lead individuals 
from unendurable misery to bliss and to secure for them an im- 
mortal life. With Plotinus, on the other hand, the individual in 
his isolation appears much too narrow, insufficient, and help- 
less; there arises an ardent longing for a new life springing direct 
from the fulness of infinitude. The anthropocentric character 
of the process of life yields to a cosmocentric, or rather a theo- 
centric, character. At the same time every effort is made to 
bridge the chasm between man and the world, between subject 
and object, which had dominated thought ever since Aristotle; 
this is accomplished by the transference of reality to an inner 
life of the spirit, by including all antitheses in a world process, 
from which everything issues and to which everything returns. 
Plotinus's efforts are directed toward a consolidation of Greek 
culture and toward its defence against all hostile attacks by 
epitomising and intensifying it. What is peculiarly Greek again 
stands out in stronger relief; indeed, many a characteristic 
Greek conviction is now for the first time fully thought out. 
But we shall see how, in these completely altered times, the 
fullest development of Greek ideas leads to a total collapse; amid 
stormy movements the Greek character disintegrates with the 
Greeks themselves and a new epoch is introduced by their last 
great philosopher. Christianity experienced the direct opposite. 
Plotinus's mind was altogether hostile to it; and his assault was 
the more dangerous, because it took place in the field of its own 
strength, and was made in the name of religion. But, as a mat- 
ter of fact, Christianity is indebted to Plotinus for furtherance of 
the greatest importance, since it not only drew upon the world 
of speculative thought extensively in detail, but also first found 
in the latter a general intellectual background for its spirituality 
and for the new world it proclaimed. With the exception of 
Augustine, no thinker exerted a greater influence upon early 
Christianity than Plotinus; consequently, the further history of 
Christianity is incomprehensible apart from his doctrines. Thus 
Plotinus experienced with peculiar force the contradiction which 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 105 

human destiny not infrequently exhibits: where he meant to 
build up, he destroyed ; and where he aimed to destroy, he built 
up. 

C/3) THE BASIS OF THE VIEW OF THE WORLD 

Plotinus turns with fervour and eager yearning to seek God 
and the highest good above and beyond the immediate world 
with its inconstancy and impurity. Thus the conception of 
other-worldliness is here accentuated to the last degree; the 
School of Plotinus, in particular, revels in the notion of the 
supermundane, a conception which must have excited the 
amazement of an ancient Greek much as the idea of the super- 
divine would do a Christian. The connection with the tendency 
of the age is unmistakable; but what in general remained a mat- 
ter of subjective feeling, of moral and religious yearning, became 
at the hands of Plotinus a reasoned conviction related to his 
theoretical doctrine respecting the nature of reality. With ob- 
vious dependence upon Plato, but with an individual develop- 
ment of what he borrowed, Plotinus worked out a doctrine which 
maintained that only being thought of as indeterminate — being 
that is absolutely nothing but being, and hence that precedes and 
includes everything — could form true reality. But the varied 
world of experience does not present us with such indeterminate 
being; hence it must be sought for beyond the world, and postu- 
lated as existing by itself in transcendent exaltation. 

If, however, pure being in this exalted isolation is also to form 
the true essence, the sole substance, of things, there results a 
complicated and contradictory condition. What things present 
in their immediate existence is not their true being; between ex- 
istence and essence, accordingly, there is here a wide divergence, 
even an apparently impassable chasm: this cannot be spanned 
without profound changes in the first impression of the world, 
and without a wholly new construction of reality. 

But, now, pure being — and this is essential to the Plotinian 
conception — is identified with the Deity: to penetrate to pure 
being means also to unlock the deep things of God. Thus 



io6 HELLENISM 

speculation becomes religion; the triumph of abstraction ought 
also to still the craving for happiness. Herewith the opposition 
between pure being and its varied manifestations is transferred 
in all its harshness to the relation between God and the world. 
On the one hand, God exists in unapproachable isolation, in- 
accessible to appeals and thoughts alike; on the other, as being 
the sole reality, He is the Omnipresent, and that which is nearest 
to every one of us; in truth, He is nearer to us than are our in- 
dividual selves, which belong only to the world of phenomena. 
Thus God is at once removed to the furthest possible distance 
and brought the closest possible. This vacillation between op- 
posites which it cannot and hardly cares to reconcile proclaims 
the unclassical character of the Plotinian view of the world. 

But such an extreme opposition cannot continue; the con- 
tradiction between God and the world, between essence and 
existence, must somehow be adjusted. Several solutions present 
themselves : of the thinkers who, like Plotinus, made pure being 
the root of reality, some resolved the world wholly into God, 
others God into the world. Plotinus himself — concealing rather 
than solving the contradiction — attempts a middle course, and 
ascribes to the world a partial reality, less than that of God, and 
wholly dependent upon Him. He then unfolds, by developing 
an early Greek and genuinely Platonic conception, the doctrine 
that all being by nature, and so above all the highest being, feels 
the impulse to create something similar to itself, to produce the 
completest possible representative of itself, not for any particular 
end, least of all a selfish one, but as a natural manifestation of 
indwelling goodness. But since the creature, too, receives this 
impulse to create, the movement propagates itself, stage is added 
to stage, until non-being threatens to outweigh being, and there- 
with progress encounters a limit. 

Accordingly, the universe is transformed from mere coexis- 
tence into succession ; a chain of life arises, a realm of descending 
stages. Each succeeding stage is less than the preceding one, 
for — so Plotinus, like most of the Greek philosophers, thought — 
the perfect cannot originate from the imperfect, the copy can 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 107 

never fully equal the original, the higher must always precede 
the lower. But all later generation remains in harmony with 
the original perfection ; whatever is real is good in kind, indeed 
divine. The lower, too, in virtue of its inner kinship with the 
higher, strives backward toward its origin; hence there issues 
also from it a movement extending throughout the universe, so 
that the whole of reality is involved in a cycle of occurrence. 
This movement is not temporal in kind, not a succession of in- 
dividual stages, but a timeless process of essence and worth, an 
eternal becoming of the world out of God. Thus a diversity of 
ages exists only in the sense that there is an unending series of 
cycles in the realm of phenomena. Beyond all change, however, 
eternal being abides in transcendent majesty, itself unmoved, 
though the source of all motion. 

There appears in such doctrines a strong desire to subordinate 
the manifold to a unity, to elevate human existence to the sig- 
nificance of a cosmic, indeed a divine, life. The energetic devel- 
opment of these tendencies meant a momentous historical change. 
From the outset Greek philosophy had taught the rigid coher- 
ence of all reality and had bidden man to submit himself to the 
universe. But the several spheres of life touched one another 
externally only; in his innermost being each individual was still 
thrown upon himself. Now, however, an all-embracing, all- 
penetrating unity became the source of the whole of life; each 
point became inwardly united with it; each particular thing 
must draw its life from it; for any individual being to separate 
itself from the unity in selfish isolation meant to incur the pen- 
alty of vacuity. Thus the narrow spheres are burst asunder 
and a boundless universal life surges through the wide expanse. 
But this universal life is through and through divine in its nature; 
whether we seek the good beyond the world or in it we come 
upon God; all the various channels of life are only so many 
ways to God ; in each particular sphere there is nought of worth 
except that sphere's revelation from God. 

Here for the first time we have a religious conduct of life 
based upon philosophy, a thoroughly religious world of thought, 



108 HELLENISM 

a religious system of culture. But life, although one in its root, 
is divided in its development into two chief tendencies, in ac- 
cordance with the belief that the Divine Being is active and 
accessible in a twofold manner, namely, immediately in His 
transcendent majesty, mediately throughout the whole universe 
according to its degrees of subordination. There result different, 
if kindred, realities and forms of life. The search for the divine 
in the world is dominated by the idea of a pervasive order and 
gradation. Each individual thing has its fixed position; here and 
here only it receives a share in essential being and perfect life; 
it receives this life through a revelation of the next higher stage, 
and communicates it to the next lower stage; it can accomplish 
nothing, indeed it is nothing, apart from this relationship. That 
is the fundamental philosophical conception of a hierarchy; 
but it is also the origin of a magnificent artistic conception of the 
world, in which "the forces of life ascend and descend and hand 
to one another the golden vessel." 

Opposed to this line of thought is that of an immediate revela- 
tion of God beyond the world of phenomena, in a sphere where 
there are no copies, and the original perfection is everything. In 
this transcendence alone there is revealed the whole depth of 
being and the fulness of bliss. All mediation has disappeared 
along with the phenomenal world; here God is immediately all 
in all. This is the mystic realm; and it is just as much a con- 
trast of, as a complement to, the hierarchical order. 

(7) THE WORLD AND THE LIFE OF MAN 

At first Plotinus follows in the footsteps of Plato, and distin- 
guishes matter and form as constituting the world's principal 
antithesis. Like Plato, too, he is filled with a strong antipathy 
to sensuous matter, which fetters us and drags us down. He 
views it as something thoroughly irrational, crude, and animal; 
a product of elemental, non-divine nature (recalling the old doc- 
trine of chaos). There is no place for such matter in a world of 
pure reason; hence the coherence of reality is destroyed, and 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 109 

two worlds originate, one of self-contained, pure spirituality, and 
the other of the lower forms of soul life, sunk in matter and 
bound to sensuousness. It becomes a duty sharply to separate 
the two worlds; and the sensuous is to be rejected not only in 
particular forms and in abnormal developments, but in every 
form and as to its whole nature. Asceticism, or the escape from 
sensuous existence, could not find a deeper theoretical basis than 
is here given to it. 

The more sharply a higher world separates itself from the 
coarseness and darkness of matter, the more powerfully it de- 
velops its own character of pure spirituality. And spiritual life 
attains a more independent position, indeed an elevation to a 
self-dependent world. At the same time, there begins a shifting 
of all categories into the non-sensuous, the living, the inward; 
the transformation of ideas into purely spiritual entities is taken 
in full earnest; time is recognised as the product of a timeless 
soul; even space seems projected from the mind itself. The 
process of life is now no longer, as formerly, a commerce with 
an external although kindred reality; it is a movement purely 
within the spirit. Within lie its problems and achievements, 
the beginning and end of its activity. 

By such a transformation the inner life outgrows the immedi- 
ate form of soul life, and to the realm of the conscious are added 
the realms of the superconscious and the subconscious. Thus 
arise the three domains of spirit, soul, and nature — all of them 
stages of the world-forming inner life. In this relation, the lower 
is encompassed and supported by the higher, nature by the soul, 
the soul by the spirit, the spirit by absolute being. Hence the 
soul is not in the body, but the body in the soul. 

Plotinus, however, is impelled to look beyond even the most 
general concept of inner life to an all-dominating chief activity. 
This he finds, in accordance with the old Greek conviction, in 
thinking and knowing. In fact, by tracing all spiritual being 
back to thinking, and by resolving even the stages of the uni- 
verse into stages of thinking, he develops intellectualism to its 
farthest extreme. Thus Plotinus, like Aristotle, distinguishes 



no HELLENISM 

three chief activities: knowing (Oecopelv), acting {irpdrruv), 
and artistic production (iroieiv). But thinking alone has gen- 
uine life; creating is a close rival, since its essence consists in 
filling being with thought; conduct, on the contrary, falls far 
behind. Only when executing a theory has it a certain value; 
for the rest, it is a mere phantom with which those may con- 
cern themselves who are not fit for theory. Thus intellectualism 
destroys itself by exaggeration. For here knowledge calls a halt 
only when it ceases to be really knowledge and becomes feeling. 
Thus the altered times force the Greek view of life to give up 
its own presuppositions and to destroy the relationships out of 
which it grew. But amid the dissolution it leads to new paths, 
and even in its downfall it proves its greatness. But the defi- 
niteness and plasticity which characterised the ancient conduct 
of life are now past and gone; upon the native soil of Greek 
philosophy the classical is transformed into a romantic ideal. 

But what significance has man in this universe, and what is 
the purpose of his life? We find that no special sphere is 
assigned to him, nor is he occupied with any particular work. 
Life in common with his fellows, i. e., the social sphere, remains 
wholly in the background. Human existence receives its con- 
tent altogether from the universe, and is completely bound up 
with the destiny of the whole. In this, however, man finds a 
peculiar dignity, since he is enabled to share inwardly in the in- 
finitude of the universe and in its aims and processes. Accord- 
ingly, there develops an incomparably higher estimate of the 
human soul. It is of like essence with God {pixoovaio^, the 
same expression which Christian dogma uses for Christ), and 
hence of eternal and boundless nature. "The soul is much and 
everything, as well what is above as what is below, as far as life 
extends. And we are each of us an ' intelligible ' world («o'o-/u,o? 

Man shares with the universe the contrast of a purely intel- 
lectual and a sensuous being. The human soul has fallen from 
pure spirituality and is encumbered with a body; that involves 
it in all the perplexities and troubles of sense; by a succession of 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY in 

births it must wander and wander, until a complete purification 
leads it back to the world of ideas. Hence the first aim, pre- 
paratory to all further effort, must be severance from sense; 
this means nothing less than the uprooting of everything that 
binds us to sensuous existence, or a complete withdrawal within 
the spiritual self. In the execution of this aim there are not 
wanting regulations in the spirit of ordinary asceticism: thus, 
we should mortify and subdue the body, in order to show that 
the self is something different from external things. But, in 
general, Plotinus treats the question in the large sense of a man 
who does not insist upon the outward detail, because he is con- 
cerned above all with the whole and with what is inward. What 
he requires is a purification (fcddapais) of being, a complete 
alienation of desire from external things, an unqualified turning 
of the will inward. We ought not to succumb to the impressions 
made by our surroundings, but to receive with indifference what- 
ever fortune imposes upon us; superior to mere nature, and to 
the behaviour of the crowd, we should parry the blows of fortune 
like sturdy athletes. Such a detachment from the material world 
and from all external welfare is at the same time an exaltation 
into the realm of freedom. For our dependence extends only so 
far as our entanglement in sensuous existence and its obscure 
compulsions; and it is open to us to abandon that whole sphere, 
and to attain perfect freedom in a supersensible world. 

But this self-dependent spiritual life finds a substantial pur- 
pose in the gradual progress toward an increasingly coherent 
understanding of things; and the problem assumes varied as- 
pects, since the chief domains of reality appear as stages in the 
work of life, and thus place man in a progressive development. 
Let us follow rapidly the steps in this movement. 

(8) THE STAGES OF SPIRITUAL CREATION 

The lowest stage of inner or spiritual life is nature. For, 
according to Plotinus, even in the external world all form and 
all life come from the soul, which is active in matter as the 



ii2 HELLENISM 

formative power; Indeed, the process of nature is in its essence 
a soul-life of a lower kind, a state of sleep of the spirit, a dreamy 
self-perception of the world soul. 

But the self-contained life of the soul stands free above mat- 
ter. The penetrating acuteness with which Plotinus points out 
the soul's characteristics, particularly its unity and the self- 
activity of its processes, has also a practical application: the 
soul-life, namely, produces within itself its power and also its 
responsibility; it is not compelled from without, but decides by 
its own faculties. 

In distinguishing the spirit from the soul as a still higher 
stage, Plotinus falls in with a strong tendency of his age. But 
whereas this tendency attained elsewhere only vague expression, 
at his hands it received a comparatively exact formulation. Pecu- 
liar to soul-life in its narrower sense is consciousness with its de- 
sires and deliberations. But it is impossible that consciousness 
should be the essence of the inner life and the source of truth; 
the fountain-head must be a world behind consciousness. For 
the activity of consciousness always rests upon a deeper founda- 
tion. When we reflect upon ourselves, we always come upon an 
already thinking nature, only it is, as it were, in repose; in order 
to seek for reason, we must already possess reason. 

In a similar manner, Plotinus elevates the good not only above 
all dependence upon anything external, but even above the state 
of subjective feeling, maintaining that it resides exclusively in a 
self-contained, spiritual activity. In the first place, no inde- 
pendent value is ascribed to pleasure. Pleasure is always pleas- 
ure in something, and therefore it can never dispense with a 
basis in an object. The subjective state is a consequence of the 
content of life; effort does not produce goodness, but goodness 
effort. Moral excellence and happiness do not require reflective 
consciousness nor positive feeling. As we remain healthy and 
beautiful, even when unconsciously so, so we do not need ?lways 
to bear in mind wisdom and virtue. The more we are absorbed 
in our activity, and the more closely our condition is identified 
with our own being, the more the feelings of pleasure and pain 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 113 

pale, indeed vanish. For we feel distinctly only what is alien, 
not ourselves, not our own inmost being. Hence to become in- 
wardly independent means to free oneself from the power of 
pleasure. 

Plotinus remained true to the old Greek connection of happi- 
ness with activity; but we saw that he did not understand activ- 
ity as a visible performance affecting one's surroundings. Hence, 
in his opinion, no outward manifestation is needed for the com- 
pletion of virtue; else we would be forced to wish that injustice 
should arise, in order that we might exercise justice, distress, 
that we might relieve it, war, that we might show bravery. In 
truth, the inner attitude, the living disposition, constitutes a com- 
plete, ceaseless activity. Once more the extreme development of 
a conviction threatens to destroy its original form. The joyful, 
buoyant spirit of the Greek looked to activity alone for happi- 
ness. But the greater the obstacles of life became, the further 
activity had to retreat, until now it surrenders all relation to the 
environment, and becomes merely an inner movement of the 
being, a self-contained attitude of the mind. It has now no 
other aim than the comprehension of absolute being, the union 
of its nature with God; it makes man indifferent to the visible 
world and a hermit among his fellows. Furthermore, every 
impulse is wanting for the improvement of the conditions of hu- 
man existence. Hence, also, the idea of the good soars in a trans- 
cendent region high above the world of practical effort. 

Nowhere, however, is the change introduced by Plotinus so 
obvious as in the case of the idea of the beautiful. A predomi- 
nantly spiritual character had been attributed to the beautiful 
by Plato; but a large sensuous element nevertheless entered into 
the elaboration. Plotinus was the first to take the conception in 
full earnest; and, as a result, he was driven to a wholly new 
view. Beauty, that is, cannot lie in proportion (crvfifierpia), 
where thinkers had hitherto sought it. For then only composite 
things could be beautiful. But, even among sensuous objects, 
simple things please, such as sunlight, gold, and the stars; and, 
in the spiritual realm, relations of size lose all meaning. In 



ii 4 HELLENISM 

truth, the beautiful consists in the triumphant sway of the 
higher above the lower, of the idea over matter, of the soul over 
the body, of reason and the good over the soul; the ugly, on the 
contrary, springs from the dominance of the lower, from a sup- 
pression of the idea by matter. So taken, beauty rests upon the 
good, as that which has worth in itself; and it must never relin- 
quish this dependence. The outward manifestation becomes 
incidental, since beauty does not arise from a union of inner and 
outer, but merely from the inner and for the inner. Artistic cre- 
ation does not embody itself in the marble, but abides with itself; 
the external work, the visible performance, is only a copy, an im- 
press, of the inner creation in the mind of the artist, and there- 
fore inevitably inferior to it. This transcendence of inner activity 
implies that art is more than an imitation of nature. Rather, it 
should be said, that nature itself imitates something higher, and 
that art does not copy the sensuous form in nature but the reason 
active in the form; above all, however, that in virtue of the 
beauty inwardly present to the mind of the artist, art adds much 
from its own resources, supplementing the defects. Here we 
have unfolded for the first time the conviction that art builds up 
a new, ideal reality, opposed to the world immediately revealed 
to the senses. But this recognition of its higher mission did not 
lead Plotinus to turn his thoughts to art as an independent field. 
His efforts, even in the case of the beautiful, are much too exclu- 
sively directed to the fundamental relation of man to the uni- 
verse, for him to be impelled toward any particular develop- 
ment or any definite formulation. Thus beauty bids fair to 
transcend art, just as truth did science, and goodness practical 
activity. 

Consequently, in every sphere life is deepened, there is a free 
soaring of the mind above all material things, an unreserved 
spiritualising of all activity and creativeness. From being a 
part of the world, the life of the spirit becomes the sole support 
of the whole of reality. Yet it remains in remote transcendence, 
without a nearer definition, or any visible content. And from 
this transcendent height Plotinus is forced to take the last step, 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 115 

to turn, namely, from the whole realm of mediate demonstration 
to an immediate grasp of absolute essence, to union with God. 

(€) UNION WITH GOD 

The problem of finding God in his innermost being forms in 
this system the supreme attainment of life. All revelation in 
and through the universe points indeed back to Him, as the copy 
points to the original ; but now the aim is to reach immediately 
and in its entirety what hitherto had been attainable only piece- 
meal and by means of intermediate steps. Hence it will readily 
be understood that Plotinus's emotional nature, which hitherto 
has entered into his work only under restraint, now wells up 
rapturously and pervades his whole account with a passionate 
fervour. This last development means a return to ourselves quite 
as much as it does a breach with all that previously concerned 
us. What we seek is not far from us, and not much lies between 
it and us; it is in fact our own hitherto estranged nature that we 
seek; let us accomplish the return into our true and happy 
fatherland. But since we yielded ourselves to strangers, a com- 
plete change will be necessary, an inner revolution; the new 
cannot gradually grow out of the old, it must break forth sud- 
denly. "Then may one believe he has caught sight of it when 
the soul suddenly receives light." Instead of a continuous up- 
ward striving, now it is calm waiting that is required. "One 
must remain in repose until it appears, and be only an observer, 
as the eye awaits the rising of the sun." In truth, he who would 
attain a vision of the innermost nature must close the outward 
eye. 

But conceptions can communicate nothing of what immediate 
intuition discloses concerning the Divine Being; only what He 
is not can be told ; any further affirmation remains a mere com- 
parison. Even of the state of exaltation, of "ecstasy," only fig- 
urative expressions can give a certain idea. 

But the Divine Being may be brought somewhat nearer by the 
ideas of the One and the Good. The strict notion of unity, 



n6 HELLENISM 

which is raised far above the unity of mere number, forbids 
every kind of distinction within the Supreme Being. Whence 
it is concluded that the Absolute Being cannot possess self-con- 
sciousness, or be a personality. But this only in the abstract. 
For yonder pure, indeterminate Being is in reality continually 
having an inner life attributed to it: the impersonal Substance 
transforms itself imperceptibly into the all-animating Deity; the 
absorption in infinitude merges into a complete surrender of the 
heart and mind to the Perfect One, and speculative thinking is 
lost in a profoundly inward form of religion. Thus Plotinus's 
world, too, is far richer than his abstract conceptions. Hence, 
likewise, he does not hesitate to identify the idea of the good 
with the Absolute Being. 

But such difficulties and contradictions as remain did not dis- 
turb Plotinus in his full surrender to the Supreme Being. Just 
as the state of union with God immeasurably transcended all 
other life, so also does the happiness attainable in it. The pos- 
session of the whole world would not counterbalance this hap- 
piness; and from this exalted height everything human appears 
puny and worthless. The philosopher in fact revels in the 
thought of exclusive withdrawal into the transcendent unity, 
which is at the same time the root of reality. That thought here 
first displays the mighty power over the human heart which it 
often displayed later, and can ever manifest anew. To rouse 
men to aspire to this high goal now becomes the chief aim of 
philosophy. But in the case of a purpose which requires 
so emphatically the devotion of the whole being, philosophy 
can do no more than point the way; each of his own accord 
must supply the will. "The teaching leads to the pathway 
and to the journey. The vision is the affair of him who would 
see." 

Thus we reach life upon the summit of mystic union with the 
Absolute. Plotinus himself regards this attainment during the 
earthly life as a rare exception. If the idea of God afforded us 
nothing more than this, it would but exalt certain solemn mo- 
ments of life, not elevate its total condition. But, in truth, by 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 117 

means of the work of reason the effects of this idea extend far 
beyond immediate intuition and result in a transformation of 
the whole of reality. 

A powerful influence upon the whole of life is exerted further- 
more by the conviction that in the Absolute Being all the contra- 
dictions of reality are solved, indeed that they finally merge 
into one whole. This has already been shown in part; but some 
other points may now be added. 

The Supreme Being knows no movement in the sense of 
change; rather there reigns for Him a perfect peace, a perpetual 
repose. But notwithstanding its changelessness, the repose of 
the Divine Being is not of an idle and lifeless sort; it implies a 
ceaseless activity, it is the highest and completest life. Hence 
there are united in this Substratum both essence and activity. 
Also, all discrepancy between existence and its cause disap- 
pears, since the Absolute Being creates itself, is its own cause 
(causa sui). Consequently, freedom and necessity also coincide 
as one and the same. The Divine Being knows no chance and 
no uncertain caprice, but also no dependence on what is external 
and alien; He lives solely out of Himself. By an ascent to the 
Supreme Being, man too may share in such divine freedom, 
which means incomparably more than the mere liberation from 
sensuousness. 

Finally, the problem concerning the rationality of the actual 
world attains from this supreme and all-comprehensive altitude 
a peculiar solution. The theodicy here offered to us has, indeed, 
borrowed many features from the Stoics; but what it appropri- 
ates receives a fresh treatment, so that it becomes the most im- 
portant achievement of antiquity in this direction. — Plotinus 
does not in the least dispute that evil is widespread, but he holds 
that we can successfully combat it by making knowledge more 
profound. In the first place, man should consider the problem 
not from the point of view of himself, or of any part whatever, 
but from that of the whole; "One must look not at the wish of 
the individual, but at the universe"; "because the fire has gone 
out in thee, it follows not that all fire is extinguished." Accord- 



II 



8 HELLENISM 



ingly, all the lines of thought of the Plotinian system are laid 
under contribution in order to vindicate the state of the world: 
particularly a metaphysical and an aesthetic consideration prof- 
fer their assistance. Evil in the strict sense has no essence; in 
its nature it is not anything positive, but only a lesser good, a 
spoliation of higher qualities, a defect (eWet^ri?) in the good. 
Even upon the lower levels of reality the good predominates; 
hence it is better that these lower levels exist than that they do 
not. They are further necessary for the reason that a manifold 
is essential to the perfection of the universe, since in addition to 
the higher there must be a lower. A statue cannot be all eye, 
nor a painting all vivid colour, nor a drama all heroes and hero- 
ines. Furthermore, although the individual parts of the world 
conflict with one another, the whole forms a harmony including 
all contradictions ; also what seems to us men unnatural, belongs 
to the nature of the whole. Whoever finds fault with reality, 
usually thinks only of the world of the senses. But above this 
world thought discloses another of pure spirituality and ideality, 
which knows no evil, and even elevates and ennobles the sen- 
suous world. 

Thus the ancient Greek belief in the rationality and beauty of 
the universe is maintained to the end in full force. The last in- 
dependent thinker produced by Hellenism holds to the conviction 
that what is needed is not the creation of a new world, but 
reconciliation to the present one by means of an enlightened in- 
telligence. He, too, looks upon reality as the finished work of 
reason ; here there is no room for great innovations, for a veri- 
table history with free volition and progress due to individual 
initiative; in order to avoid all unreason, it is sufficient to pene- 
trate to the foundation underlying the obscure appearance of 
things. Thus thought asserts itself to the end as the power 
which reassures man concerning his destiny, and lifts him up to 
the Deity. 

The more, however, man lays aside his peculiar character and 
attains a life in the Infinite, the more human activity is trans- 
formed from striving to possession, from ceaseless progress to 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 119 

perpetual repose. Rest in the Absolute, beyond all conflicts and 
contradictions, became, amid the confusion of the time and the 
sudden decline of civilisation, the highest aim. The immedi- 
ately surrounding world now finds its principal significance in 
pointing the way to the higher world; it has its worth not in 
what it is, but in what it reveals as the sign and symbol of a 
higher being. It is owing to this symbolic character of the im- 
mediately actual world that allegorical interpretation possesses 
a profound justification. And the ascent from the sensuous to 
the spiritual, from the image to the truth, now becomes the chief 
movement of life. 

Just as, in Plotinus's view, intellectual activity at its height 
passes altogether into religion, and religion rules over life, so it 
is principally religion that unites Plotinus himself to his surround- 
ings, and also determines his position in the historical movements 
of his time. His attitude toward the Greek religion was entirely 
friendly, since his doctrine of the gradation of the Supreme 
Being through a series of realms was attractive to the popular 
polytheistic belief. And just as an exclusive monotheism had 
always conflicted with Greek feeling, so the strict unity of the 
deepest Ground of things did not forbid, even for a Plotinus, the 
assumption of intermediate powers, visible and invisible, in the 
realm of experience. Possessed of such a foundation, the ances- 
tral religion appeared to be spiritually deepened and securely 
anchored; sympathetic minds could now hope for a revival of 
the ancient faith. Religious enthusiasm once again blazed up, 
only to die down quickly to a dull flame, and then go out alto- 
together. Yet it was Neo-Platonism upon which the last 
attempt at a restoration (that of Julian), leaned for support; 
its conceptions formed the last weapons of dying Hellenism. 
Thus philosophy loyally bore Greek life company to the 
end. 

The convictions which united Plotinus to Hellenism neces- 
sarily separated him from Christianity. His antagonism toward 
the latter centred upon points which are revealed in utterances 
directed against the Christian Gnostics. The chief criticisms of 



120 HELLENISM 

their doctrines are the following : i. The over-estimate of man. — 
Man is indeed united by means of his rational nature with the 
deepest foundation of things, but he is only a part of the world, 
and not only over him but over the whole world the divine sway 
is exercised. 2. The depreciation and materialisation of the 
world. — Whoever attacks the universe knows not what he 
does nor how far his impudence extends. It is, furthermore, 
radically perverse to ascribe an immortal soul to the least of 
men, and to deny one to the universe and to the eternal stars. 
3. An inactive attitude. — What is needed is not prayer but 
effort. If we shun the conflict, the bad win the victory. Even in 
the inner life, the thing is to act, and not merely to implore sal- 
vation. Complete virtue, based upon insight, reveals God to us. 
Without true virtue, however, God is an empty word. 

How far these reproaches are pertinent, and whether, in addi- 
tion to the Gnostics, they apply to Christianity, cannot here be 
discussed. In any case they distinctly show that, in spite of all 
the changes, the old Greek ideal of life retains its chief charac- 
teristics; namely, the subordination of man to the universe, the 
personification, indeed the deification, of the powers of nature, 
the expectation of happiness from activity alone, the esteeming 
knowledge to be the divine power in man. 

In reality, Plotinus is separated from Christianity even further 
than is implied in the above attack; yet, on the other hand, 
there exists a closer relationship than the antagonism between 
them allows us to perceive. In both there is a thoroughgoing 
spiritualising of existence, and a reference of all life to God, 
but less in a spirit of uplifting the world than of repelling it. 
But Plotinus finds the spiritualising of existence in an impersonal 
intellectual activity, Christianity in an unfolding of the personal 
life; in the one, all welfare comes from the power of thought, in 
the other, from purity of heart. This fundamental difference 
results in opposing answers to the most important questions of 
life. With Plotinus, there is an abandonment of the sense world, 
exaltation above temporal to eternal things, and repose in a 
world-embracing vision; in Christianity, eternity enters into 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 121 

temporal things, there is an historical development, and a coun- 
teraction of the unreason of existence. In the former, man dis- 
appears before the infinitude of the universe; in the latter, he is 
made the centre of the whole; there, there is an isolation of the 
thinker upon a pinnacle of world-contemplation; here, a close 
union of individuals in a perfect fellowship of life and suffering. 
However highly we may esteem the content of truth in Plotinus's 
ideas, and the fervour of his religious feeling, we must still regard 
it as wholly comprehensible that the ever-increasing, mighty 
yearning for religion sought satisfaction, not in his direction, but 
in that of Christianity. 

Plotinus makes us feel with peculiar force the profound con- 
tradiction which thwarted the efforts of post-classical antiquity, 
the contradiction, namely, that the development of a transcend- 
ent spirituality remained conjoined with what in reality was an 
inanimate, impersonal world; step by step the movement was 
obstructed by this impediment. It was Christianity that first 
solved the contradiction, by revealing a world corresponding to 
the religious aspiration of the time, and thereby guiding life's 
problem into new channels. How much Christianity itself owed 
to Plotinus, we shall consider below. 

(£) RETROSPECT 

We must again insist that it is impossible to do justice to Plo- 
tinus without penetrating beneath the work to the soul of the 
man. Unless we look beyond the first impression, nearly all his 
doctrines provoke contradiction, and only a world-worn, ex- 
hausted, and ascetic civilisation would seem in some measure to 
excuse them. A shirking of the world's work, an isolation from 
human society, a formless intellectual life, a magical interpreta- 
tion of nature — all these can make appeal to Plotinus. True, there 
also spring from his mode of thought more fruitful movements: 
the emotional life of mediaeval mysticism, and the attempts at a 
construction of philosophy from pure concepts, extending on 
into the nineteenth century, both point back to him. But his real 



122 HELLENISM 

historical achievement is something apart from any of his par- 
ticular doctrines, indeed is opposed to some of them: it is, 
namely, the destruction of the ancient ideal of life with its defi- 
niteness of form, and the creation of a new ideal of spiritual 
exaltation and soaring aspiration; the bursting asunder of all 
the fetters imposed by surroundings, and the substituting of the 
emancipation born of a pure spirituality; the subjection of all 
forms of activity to the control of a primordial, all-comprehen- 
sive Being. Although this is all merely tentative, it none the less 
prepared the way for a new view of the world and a new conduct 
of life; the individual had become too clearly conscious of his 
supreme autonomy as a spiritual being to make it possible that 
he should ever again submit himself to a given order in the ca- 
pacity of a mere member. Beneath these beginnings, hidden by 
the rubbish of a world fallen into decay, there lay an abundance 
of vigorous germs which were destined to develop under more 
favourable circumstances into mighty forces. 

Plotinus not only terminated, and inwardly disintegrated, the 
ancient world, not only supplied Christianity with liberating 
forces, and preserved throughout the Middle Ages, in opposition 
to the externalising influence of the prevailing organisation, an 
undercurrent of pure emotional life, but his ideas were an indis- 
pensable aid to the Renaissance in the struggle for independence 
of thought, and even modern speculation and modern aesthetics 
manifest his influence. Thus Plotinus has been an effective force 
in all ages; as a truly original thinker, he remains even to-day 
a source of large views and of stimulating suggestiveness. 

The immediate effects of Plotinus's thought upon dying Hel- 
lenism need not detain us. The fusion of an all-comprehensive 
speculation with a deep emotional life, the interaction of religion 
and philosophy, were not bequeathed from master to disciples. 
After Plotinus's death the religious movement ran off into 
visions and superstition, the philosophical movement into ab- 
stract formalism and empty scholasticism. With the last burst 
of light in Plotinus, the creative power of Greece was finally 
extinguished. 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 123 



(c) The Greatness and the Limitations oj Antiquity 

A resume of the ancient views of life should fix attention, not 
upon particular phenomena, but upon the development as a 
whole. In this development we distinguished three periods: 
those of intellectual creation, worldly wisdom, and religious med- 
itation and speculation. The post-classical period immeasurably 
increased the importance of the individual, and strove toward 
a life of pure inwardness. It was the first age to grasp the essen- 
tial nature of both morals and religion, and to acknowledge 
their independent existence. In these important particulars, 
preparation was made not only for Christianity, but for the 
modern world as well. The valuation and treatment of the 
above-mentioned periods has vacillated considerably in modern 
times. When Humanistic enthusiasm brought into strong relief 
the difference between antiquity and the modern world, and 
sought to derive from the former a fresh impetus toward creative 
work, it was the classical epoch that fixed the attention and 
called forth admiration; but when men turned to antiquity for 
the instruction and culture of the individual soul, then it was 
the later epochs which had a powerful influence. In the period 
of the Enlightenment, the writings of a Lucretius and a Seneca, 
a Plutarch and a Marcus Aurelius, were in the hands of all cul- 
tivated persons. Since the rise of modern Humanism, however, 
that is no longer the case. But do not the more vigorous devel- 
opment of the individual and the intensifying of life which we 
are experiencing to-day bring us again nearer to later antiquity ? 
So much is certain : the historical view must estimate antiquity 
as a whole; and its appreciation will only be enhanced, if, in- 
stead of staring fixedly at a single zenith of glory, as if this zenith 
were a miraculous gift of destiny, it looks with discrimination 
and discerns great movements and changes within the whole, 
and discovers everywhere eager effort and severe labour and 
struggle. 

But all the differences of epochs do not rob antiquity of an 



i2 4 HELLENISM 

inner relationship and a permanent basis: the divergences are 
all within a common content of life. 

For all the Greek views unite in regarding activity as the soul 
of life. The activity, indeed, takes various forms, and finds its 
centre of gravity in different spheres; in the course of centuries 
it retreats further and further behind immediate existence, yet 
ever remains the chief thing; it is always the criterion of the suc- 
cess of life. It is by activity that, for the most part, man knows 
that he lives amid great relationships and under the protection 
of Deity. But the origin and essence of activity lie with the 
man himself; his own force must awaken the divinity of his 
nature and guide it to victory over his lower self. Even in the 
perversions of asceticism and mysticism, the issue remained 
with man; his own exertion was to win happiness. Such con- 
victions imply a firm faith in the power and nearness of good- 
ness, and they clearly testify to a strong vitality, a joy in being, 
a delight in the unfolding of power. Here the multiplication of 
obstacles has not broken the will to live; certain kinds of life, 
indeed, are rejected, but in the rejection life itself is affirmed; 
complete extinction, in the sense of the Hindoo, is not what is 
sought. Even the ever-increasing desire for the assurance of 
immortality attests the power of the vital impulse and shows a 
tenacious clinging to life. Indeed, in the Greek hopes of im- 
mortality, there is far more a desire of prolonging the present 
than there is a conception of a wholly new kind of being. The 
philosophical doctrines reflect that focussing upon this life 
of the belief in immortality which is seen in the ancient sar- 
cophagi, themselves already belonging to a period when life 
was overspread with gloom. For they clothe death with the 
varied wealth of life; they hold fast to existence, by ennobling 
it and elevating it into an ideal sphere. 

From such a delight in life and in activity there springs a tri- 
umphant youthfulness; it is the fountain-head of that astonish- 
ing elasticity of mind which ever rebounds from tne hardest ob- 
stacles ready for fresh achievements. Whatever life offers that is 
great and good, is seized and developed. True, such a vigorous 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 125 

affirmation of life has as its reverse side a harsh insensibility 
toward the suffering and darkness of life. Impediments indeed 
are not underestimated, and the consciousness of them steadily 
increases. But life's wisdom is always found in the keeping of 
what is hostile at a distance, and in the raising oneself above the 
sphere of its power. On the other hand, what is hostile is not 
taken up into the soul of the life-process, and utilised for further 
development; no transformation, no inner exaltation, spring 
from suffering. This inner growth is wanting principally for 
the reason that Greek conceptions, while indeed conversant with 
the great problems of mind in its relation to the surrounding 
world, know nothing of serious inner conflicts; the dominant 
interest is in that relation, not in the mind's relation to itself and 
to its own ideality. Here there reigns a secure and joyful faith 
in the power and glory of the human mind. The intellectual 
faculties, just as we have them, are recognised to be good; all 
that is needed in order to ward off everything hostile and to sub- 
ordinate man's sensuous nature, is their vigorous development 
and a clear consciousness. The view that the mind by the un- 
folding of its powers subjugates nature, and moulds it into an 
expression of itself, here forms the essence of life's work; hence 
it is possible for the idea of the beautiful to become the central 
conception of creative effort. No inner transformation is neces- 
sary with such a conception; there is no basis for a growth 
through agitation and suffering, a passing through negation, a 
resurrection through self-abnegation. 

The intimate union of truth and beauty, of penetrating knowl- 
edge and artistic creation, which distinguishes all Greek work, 
characterises also the Greek views of life. Its profoundest aspect 
is the searching out of the essential and the eternal ; this lends 
to life a secure foundation and an enduring repose, and also 
transforms the chaotic appearance of things into a glorious 
cosmos. The contemplation of the order of the universe with 
its perfected harmony, the joy in the "eternal grace," becomes 
the highest reach of life. 

Such a view of life may satisfy man where he is either sur- 



126 HELLENISM 

rounded by an imposing present, or his thought creates out of 
the change and flow of existence an eternal present. The visi- 
ble, rational present had ceased to exist for Greek life; hence 
philosophy sought with only the greater energy to hold fast to an 
invisible one. But it had to make ever more powerful efforts in 
order to do so; the world of essence and of beauty ever receded 
further into the distance; ideas steadily lost perceptible con- 
tent; human existence grew continually more empty. Thus it 
came to be a grievous defect in the Greek conduct of life that it 
possessed no power of building up a new world; that with its 
lack of the idea of progress, it possessed no possibility of a thor- 
oughgoing reconstruction, possessed no future and no hope. 
The narrow confines of the world must have weighed upon man 
as an unendurable burden, so soon as the needs and wrongs, so 
soon, above all, as the inner emptiness of existence were dis- 
tinctly felt. 

We saw that the Greek thinkers fought against such dangers 
like stalwart heroes, and unflinchingly upheld the old ideals 
amid all the changes. But even they could not burst the bonds 
imposed by the common national character; the foundations of 
the Greek view of life were much too firm and unyielding to 
adjust themselves to the new demands; hence the time inevitably 
came when mankind turned from them, and seized upon new 
ideals. The possibilities of life within the sphere of Greek civi- 
lisation were exhausted; the decline could not be prevented. 

Still, the realisation that decadence was inevitable cannot 
restrain a feeling of profound sadness at the extinction of so 
much intellectuality and beauty. It may, however, serve to 
lessen our melancholy, if we consider that the inevitable dissolu- 
tion freed the several elements of Greek civilisation from the 
peculiar union which had thus far bound them together, and so 
enabled them to enter into new relations and to produce their 
natural fruits. Wholly typical is the heroic energy with which 
the Greek mind explored the height and depth of human expe- 
rience, clearly and steadfastly pursued to the end all the direc- 
tions which it took, and sketched in outlines full of genius repre- 



POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY 127 

sentative views of life, which exhaust the chief possibilities of 
human existence, and hence form permanent elements of the 
further work of humanity. Typical also is the spirit of beauty 
which pervades those views and irradiates from them. We have 
here in mind not only the lucidity and charm of delineation 
which distinguishes most of them, but also their imperishable 
realisation of the universal power of form, and the fact that 
by means of the beautiful a peculiar illumination of the whole 
of life is achieved. The perception of beauty becomes the 
type of all genuine intellectual life; as, in the sphere of beauty, 
a secure repose unites with ceaseless moyement, indeed, is repose 
in the midst of movement, so the same harmony is set before all 
the aspects of life as an ideal. Just as beauty pleases in itself, 
and not on account of anything it does, so intellectual labour is 
undertaken for itself, not on account of any use to which it may 
be put. And the good is desired for the sake of its inner beauty, 
without any thought of reward, and evil rejected as being in its 
nature ugly. Thus there gradually detaches itself from the 
ancient views we have considered the picture of a thoroughly 
refined life, at once strong and temperate and upborne by the 
deep seriousness of a joyful faith. 

We saw that it was necessary for the whole ancient scheme of 
life to dissolve, in order to prepare for new forms. But that 
does not mean that it may not forever attract and stimulate us. 
For the ancient conduct of life possesses an incomparable and 
imperishable character in the fact that it develops with youthful 
freshness the simple, healthy, natural view of things; and that 
in it the first impression of the human state, its experiences and 
conditions, are reflected in perfect purity. Even though the ex- 
periences of adversity and the revelation of hitherto unknown 
depths have carried us beyond that first impression, we are al- 
ways being forced to come to terms with it anew, indeed, we 
must appropriate it as a part of our own life, if the further de- 
velopment is to retain its plasticity and truth. Thus antiquity 
can the more readily render us an invaluable service, because, 
with the working out of a natural view of things, it at the same 



i 2 8 HELLENISM 

time transcends that view. For its own movement inevitably 
brings on a crisis and catastrophe : the inner spirit, which it de- 
velops in ever-increasing strength, at length necessitates the 
severance of the ties binding it to the old body, and destroys all 
the old presuppositions. Antiquity is thus comparable to a 
tragic hero who, by his very downfall, upholds and gives fresh 
strength to the cause for which he wrought. So, here, out of all 
the confusion of the historical situation there shines forth with 
ever-increasing distinctness a world of pure inwardness; in it 
the truth of the old world also may find an imperishable resurrec- 
tion. Hence, although something temporal is lost, the eternal 
abides, and even upon the stage of history a new life rises out of 
the ruins of the old. 



PART SECOND 
CHRISTIANITY 



CHRISTIANITY 

A. THE FOUNDATION 
I. THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY 

(a) Introductory Considerations 

Some sort of consideration of the general character of Chris- 
tianity is indispensable as an introduction to the views of life 
which have grown up on Christian soil. First of all, however, 
we must examine the question whether these views of life actually 
spring from the Christian religion, or merely accompany it as 
the product of other factors. Without doubt, a religion is not 
primarily a view of the world and of life, a doctrine of divine 
and human things. Rather, it is the creation of a distinctive 
world of reality, the development of a new life under the domi- 
nant conception of a higher sphere. The life that here grows up 
is conscious of being raised far above mere doctrine, and it will 
at all times stoutly defend its independence of the latter. But 
it could not be of an enlightened sort without possessing in itself 
and developing from itself convictions respecting the sum-total 
of human existence. Every higher religion brings about an in- 
version of the immediate world, and changes the standpoint of 
life. It does not rest upon metaphysic, it is itself a sort of meta- 
physic, the revelation of a new, a supernatural world. Such a 
complete change is impossible without an effort of the whole 
man, without a decision affecting the whole of his being, and the 
change cannot justify itself, either to the man himself or to 
others, unless this decision is translated into thoughts, unless the 
type of life is developed into a view of life. 

This necessity is not to be evaded by confining religion to a 

131 



132 CHRISTIANITY 

particular sphere, by treating it as something which offers the 
individual a refuge from trials, but which leaves untouched the 
whole of the intellectual life and the work of shaping civilisation. 
Not even as an individual could man find support and content- 
ment in a detached religion. For in virtue of his intellectual 
nature, in virtue of his implication in the destiny of the world, 
both his experience and his activity have reference to the uni- 
verse; hence he can find no rest for himself without being at 
peace with the world. Every attempt on the part of religion to 
intrench itself within a separate sphere exposes it sooner or later 
to the suspicion of not possessing the full truth, of not being wor- 
thy of the allegiance of our souls. As a matter of fact, every re- 
ligion proclaims its teaching, not as co-ordinate with other 
truths, but as the very core and centre of all truth, as that which 
far transcends all else. But even this estimate necessarily implies 
a view of the universe. Furthermore, religion could not assume 
the position of the chief concern of life without expanding its 
own content into a world. Thus, for example, if it finds that 
content altogether in morals, then moral conduct not only de- 
velops simultaneously with it into a harmonious whole superior 
to all distraction, but also into the expression of a new world 
transcending all the activity of the world of experience; it be- 
comes of itself a metaphysic. Accordingly, since religion is al- 
ways an affirmation respecting the last things, it cannot do with- 
out the formation of corresponding views of life. 

But do we find so much affinity between the various forms 
and aspects of Christian belief that we can speak of a view of 
life common to Christianity ? Manifestly, no other religion has 
departed so far from its beginnings, nor become in itself so 
deeply disrupted, as Christianity. Nevertheless, attempts have 
been made to defend the uniformity of its character, particularly 
by two opposite lines of argument. One makes a touchstone of 
the earliest form of Christianity, and in the later developments 
admits the genuineness only of what agrees with that form; the 
other finds the bond of union in the historical continuity; it 
holds by the immediate sequence of one form from another, and 



THE FOUNDATION 133 

accordingly must accept as Christian everything which belongs 
to the succession. Each of these methods doubtless possesses 
a certain justification; but, taken alone, neither will suffice. 
The first criterion is too narrow, the second wholly unreliable. 
Like each of the phases of the development, the beginnings con- 
tain much that belongs to the general conditions of the age and 
to the state of intellectual progress at the time; and it would be 
impossible to confine all movement within these early limits, 
and prevent every effort to rise above them. Still less will it do 
simply to go to an extreme with the history; for Christian his- 
tory was by no means determined solely by the proper exigencies 
of religion; it may very well be that other factors outweighed 
those of religion, and that in the accommodation to human 
affairs the best part of its content was sacrificed. The dilemma 
vanishes only upon our realising that, in spite of all the distor- 
tion on the part of man, historical phenomena and movements 
have an eternal truth, a central fact of spiritual life, underlying 
and working through them with indestructible power. Only 
such a super-historical truth can hold history together; only to 
such a truth can we perpetually recur without sacrificing the 
living present to the past. Hence it is necessary to separate 
the intellectual substance of religion from the human modifica- 
tions of its form, if we would possess a common groundwork of 
truth with which to confront every kind of disunion and hostility. 
Such a groundwork is clearly enough recognisable in Chris- 
tianity, particularly when it is compared with other religions. 
Thus, it is not a religion of law but of salvation ; and as such it 
is not content merely with organising and stimulating existing 
forces, but demands a wholly new world and completely regen- 
erated men. Furthermore, this religion of salvation is not of an 
ontological but an ethical sort; that is, its aim is not, like the re- 
ligions of India, to penetrate beyond a world of illusion to one 
of eternal verities; rather it views the whole of reality under the 
contrast of good and evil, and demands a new world of love and 
mercy. Accordingly, all the facts and problems of life assume 
a distinctive form. Finite existence is not degraded by it to an 



i 3 4 CHRISTIANITY 

unreal appearance, but rather immeasurably exalted in signifi- 
cance, inasmuch as it teaches that the eternal enters into the 
temporal and there reveals its innermost depths, inasmuch as it 
holds that a union of the divine and the human begins even in 
this world. Such ends cannot be set forth by Christianity with- 
out an abrupt and irreconcilable breach with the existing state 
of the world, indeed with the whole natural order; nor without 
its reiterating the imperative demand for a new world. It 
thereby directs men's thoughts above everything visible and 
present to an invisible and future order. But this breach with 
the world is not equivalent to asceticism, nor does the demand 
for a better future mean an estrangement from the present. For 
the fundamentally ethical character of Christianity causes its 
spiritual superiority to the world to become at the same time 
constructive of a higher world. What the future alone can 
bring to full fruition is already present in disposition and in 
faith — more intimately present than the present of the senses; 
as such, it impels men with an elemental force toward the up- 
building of a new world, toward work on a kingdom of God in 
the very midst of the temporal misery of human life. Thus, in 
addition to inwardness and tenderness life now possesses activ- 
ity and gladness. 

These various features are closely interdependent, and taken 
together produce a thoroughly characteristic type of life. To be 
sure, the historical conditions force now this, now that side 
more into prominence; they may even cause the entire move- 
ment to deviate widely from the ideal view of the whole. But 
that throughout all change and distortion, throughout all com- 
plication and disruption, such an ideal is present and exerts a con- 
trolling influence, we must now attempt to show more in detail. 

(b) The Fundamental Facts 

The Christian life finds its chief task, not in its relation to the 
world, but in its relation to God, the perfect Spirit; fellowship 
with God becomes the centre of all activity and the source of 



THE FOUNDATION 135 

all happiness. That God is, and that man stands in relation to 
Him, are here at least as obvious and certain as the existence of 
a world around them was to the Greeks. The process of life 
itself so immediately manifests the working of the highest Spirit 
that any special proofs of the existence of God appear both 
superfluous and inadequate; only the wish for an exoteric justi- 
fication could invest them with a certain value. 

In his relation to God man is completely subordinated; and 
in this respect he cannot lay claim to any kind of egoistic being. 
But such absorption in the fellowship with God, such surrender 
of all separate existence, is after all something radically different 
from the complete extinction of all individual being in the abso- 
lute essence, which is the result in mystic speculation. The 
Christian plan of life does not rob the individual of substantial 
being; rather, notwithstanding his subordination, it preserves, 
and indeed immeasurably enhances, his independent worth. 
For the infinite distance between the perfect Spirit and wholly 
imperfect man does not prevent an intimate relation and a 
communication of the fulness of the divine life. Such a com- 
munication from being to being gives rise to a new kind of life, 
a kingdom of love and faith, a transformation of existence into 
pure inwardness, a new world of spiritual goods. In contrast 
with the previous state, this new life becomes a serious under- 
taking; in its interests, there are endless things to do, to set in 
motion, and to alter. Moreover, it requires ceaseless exertion to 
maintain the height which has been reached. At the same time, 
fellowship with the perfect Spirit brings a joy and blessedness 
which far surpass all other happiness. Further, this life, in its 
inner superiority to all other experiences, carries with it the 
certainty that the Power whence it springs rules all the world, 
indeed is the origin of all reality. The spirit of infinite love and 
goodness, the ideal of free personal being, is also the all-powerful 
Spirit, the world-creating Power. As the work of omnipotent 
goodness, the world cannot be other than perfect, perfect not 
only in the sense that under given conditions the highest possible 
has been reached, out of given materials the best possible pro- 



136 CHRISTIANITY 

duced, but perfect in the strict sense of realising all the demands 
of reason. So, too, as regards man, we may have faith that the 
winning of that inner life includes, or brings as a consequence, 
all other life; that the omnipotent love is forming the whole 
world into a kingdom of God. 

But the more completely reality is transformed from within 
and exalted, the harsher, the more unendurable, become the con- 
tradictions of experience; intimately connected with the all- 
important fact of the new life is the perception that this world is 
the source of serious hindrance and even of danger for it. Mis- 
ery and unreason not only surround us without, they assail even 
the inner life, and evil appears not only as a mere limitation 
and diminution of the good, but as a directly antagonistic force 
and a complete perversion of it. A deep chasm divides the world ; 
the triumph, indeed the very continuance, of reason seems to be 
threatened. The principal question is not, as with the Greeks, 
the relation of the mind to its environment, but its relation to 
itself, its attitude toward its own ideality, as determined by the 
fellowship with God. The ultimate ground of all evil is the 
rending asunder of that fellowship, the revolt and the disobe- 
dience of man. Here evil has its deepest root, not, as with the 
Greeks, in matter and a degrading sensuousness, but in free 
guilt; hence it is enormously intensified. The question how 
such estrangement and disobedience are possible, and whether 
in the end evil itself may not be adjusted to the divine plan of 
the world, has caused Christendom endless pondering and study. 
At the same time, there existed the strongest distrust of any pro- 
tracted discussion of such questions, and an anxiety lest an ex- 
planation of evil might weaken the seriousness with which it 
was iegarded, and hence also the vigour of the conflict against it. 
The result was that the ascription of evil to a free act was ad- 
hered to, while the question of the compatibility of a world 
devastated by guilt with the sway of omnipotent goodness re- 
mained unanswered. Thus the enigma of the origin of evil is 
left unsolved also by Christianity. 

But the Christian life could the more readily allow this problem 



THE FOUNDATION 137 

to fall into the background, since it brought all its energy to bear 
upon the actual combating of evil, and since in its own inward- 
ness it was lifted securely above the domain of the conflict and 
above all unreason. This exaltation it could not attain by itself; 
the world is too completely pervaded with unreason and too 
much broken in its spiritual capacities for that. Accordingly, 
there was no hope of reaching the goal by a slow ascent, a grad- 
ual accumulation of forces. Rather, the reinstatement of the 
right relation to God — upon which everything here depends — 
must proceed solely from the Deity; and even He cannot effect 
the restoration by an interference from without, but must de- 
scend into the world of conflict, and there break the power of 
evil, there reveal Himself more completely than heretofore. 
This takes place, according to the Christian view, in such a 
manner that God lays hold of the world, not by means of 
special powers and manifestations, but by the full plenitude of 
personal life, and rescues humanity from the power of evil by 
entering into the most intimate union with human nature, free- 
ing it from all suffering and darkness by transplanting an inner- 
most core of human essence into the divine life. But this inner 
victory over suffering and darkness cannot, according to the 
ecclesiastical view, be accomplished by the divine Spirit without 
taking the burden in all its weight upon Himself. Thus the 
idea of a divine suffering becomes for that view the profoundest 
mystery of Christianity. In the supreme crisis the divine Spirit 
seems to bow before the dominant power of evil. But the dark- 
ness endures not; the apparent defeat is soon followed by exalta- 
tion, the Spirit manifests its superiority by a complete triumph, 
and leads the good to final victory. At the same time it appears 
that only through such painful and extreme suffering could the 
whole depths of the new world be revealed, and the full security 
of the new life be won. Thus, the transformation is at first only 
inward; it appears barely to touch the visible world. Evil by 
no means disappears even now; it persists and opposes the new 
order. But its roots have been severed; it no longer has the 
power to prevent the upbuilding of a kingdom of God also in 



138 CHRISTIANITY 

this world. Such upbuilding is visibly aided by the new com- 
munity of the church, which is exclusively determined by the 
relation to God; in the midst of an indifferent or hostile world, 
this community preserves the connection with the invisible 
kingdom of God, and unites men to one another in the closest 
manner through love, faith and hope. Yet, even after the estab- 
lishment of the good in human society has been achieved by such 
means, life still retains the character of a ceaseless conflict; 
only the outlook into the future, only the invincible hope of a 
new world, bears us triumphantly beyond into a realm of peace 
and undimmed blessedness. 

Thus we see the Christian world ascend through a series of 
mighty events, and at the same time win an ever-increasing 
wealth of inner life. The creative act of God, the Fall, the en- 
trance of the divine Spirit into the historical order, the victorious 
exaltation of the good and the founding of the kingdom of God 
upon earth, the prospect of a better future held out to men until 
the Day of Judgment — it is the close connection and interde- 
pendence of all these facts and events that first brings into 
strong relief the unique character of the Christian world. The 
events are not a necessary consequence of a given world, rather 
all the decisive changes result from a free act; the act here anti- 
cipates the historical process, freedom becomesthe deepest essence 
of the spirit. Reality does not now mean something plastic, a 
work of art fascinating the perception by its restful symmetry; 
it has transformed itself into a drama of mighty forces and up- 
heavals; and this drama agitates men with a mighty emotion. 
For man is not to look upon these conflicts and vicissitudes as if 
he were a spectator at a play; he is himself to experience them 
in his deepest soul, to live them anew as his own destiny. It is 
of the very essence of the Christian life that what has been ob- 
jectively and irrevocably decided by historic events becomes for 
the individual, in all its seriousness, an ever-recurringr personal 
problem; that all the commotions of the conflict in the world ex- 
tend with undiminished strength into the circle of his experience 
and form the soul of his life. Indeed, only the individual appro- 



THE FOUNDATION 139 

pnation ana confirmation of those historic events give them ful- 
ness of life and an irresistible power of conviction; as mere 
events, they could neither sufficiently substantiate their truth 
nor attain a triumphant power of conquest. Thus the historical 
and the subjective, the macrocosmic and the microcosmic, are 
here mutually dependent; they reciprocally imply and set in 
motion and sustain one another. Even this cursory synopsis 
shows that Christianity presents us with no definitive result; 
that, notwithstanding its existence as a realised fact, it not only 
creates unending movements, but remains in itself a perpetual 
problem, a task that is ever renewed. 

(c) The Christian Life 

(a) REGENERATION OF THE INNER LIFE 

The inner transformation which life undergoes owing to the 
new relations is rendered more clear by comparison with Greek 
conceptions. So long as the problem mainly consisted in 
bringing man into relation with a fully developed environment, 
and in filling his life with this relation, knowledge necessarily 
formed the substance of spiritual existence. Where, however, 
the question is one of co-operating in the upbuilding of a new 
world and of elevating one's own nature, the main thing becomes 
a new direction of life, a comprehensive act affecting the whole 
being. This act cannot be directed toward the achievement of 
anything in the existing world, for the aim is the creation of a new 
world opposed to the present one; nor will it suffice merely to 
shift the centre of gravity in the given state of the soul to some 
other faculty than knowledge, such as feeling or volition; what 
is required is to penetrate to the farthest depths of one's being, 
and by summoning and concentrating all one's power give a 
new soul to the inner life. The struggle to gain such a soul con- 
verts the previous activities into something merely external, and 
produces a gradation within one's own being; it creates difficult 
problems for the spiritual life itself, and at the same time gives 



i 4 o CHRISTIANITY 

it a positive character; while in the Greek world the conception 
of spirit was chiefly determined by contrast with sensuousness, 
and therefore appeared the more negative in proportion as it 
was strictly taken. 

But the Christian scheme of life is not determined by abstract 
conceptions; it is determined rather by the special circum- 
stance that man has rebelled against God, and thereby become 
estranged from his own nature; his true self, his moral exist- 
ence, is thus in most imminent peril; the one concern is to rescue 
his immortal soul from death and the devil. In view of the seri- 
ousness of the obstacles, life assumes the character of an intense 
struggle, a decision concerning existence itself, a decision be- 
tween eternal bliss and eternal ruin. The question of reconcil- 
iation with God acquires an intense urgency, indeed it becomes 
the only question; all other problems now seem secondary; 
they can in fact become an object of hatred, if they stand in the 
way of the aim that is alone imperative. 

Such passionate fervour and irresistible force in the one desire 
of life makes all previous seeking for happiness appear insipid 
and unsubstantial. To be sure, this strong affirmation of life 
may easily coincide with a much lower impulse, a tenacious 
clinging to some form of self-seeking. But such by no means 
corresponds to the deeper sense of Christianity. Rather, the 
Christian conviction is that the way to a proper self-affirmation 
is through rigorous self-denial; that what is needed is not 
merely an intensified natural being, but the birth, through fel- 
lowship with God, of a new supernatural being. Such a belief 
regards religion, not, as did most of the Greek thinkers, merely 
as an agreeable ornament of existence, but as the source of a 
new life, as the fundamental condition of spiritual self-preser- 
vation. In this view, the individual derives an abiding personal 
worth, not from his own nature, but alone from God; it is only 
through heavy sacrifices, only by the destruction of the old 
character, that a new man is born. 

At the same time, the union with God lifts spiritual effort 
above the caprice of the individual. The soul, whose immortal 



THE FOUNDATION 141 

welfare is at stake, is no private affair of the man, its saving not 
a benefit that may be renounced; much rather it is an incom- 
parable treasure, a good held in trust, which under no circum- 
stances may be abandoned. The invisible relations of an eternal 
order here touch the feelings with their mystery, and give to 
life the deepest seriousness. Yet life is not oppressed by the 
earnestness it assumes, since the divine act of exaltation cease- 
lessly creates a world of love and freedom, and uplifts the indi- 
vidual to become a partaker in it. Through infinite power and 
goodness the impossible becomes possible. Thus perishes in the 
life-currents of a new world all the rigidity of a separate exist- 
ence; with liberation from the narrowness of a self-willed ego 
man gains a broader and purer self. And from sharing in the 
inexhaustible wealth of a new world there flows boundless joy 
and blessedness, experiences which lie beyond all selfish indul- 
gence or vulgar happiness. 

By means of such a purification, man's oft repressed but 
never extinguished longing for happiness becomes ennobled and 
justified; the dilemma of adopting either an egoistic self-asser- 
tion or a meaningless renunciation disappears. Those emotions, 
so often aroused and repressed, pain and joy, care and hope, 
are now severed from merely human things, and taken up into 
the spiritual life itself. They thus gain an inner elevation and 
an unassailable position; and the process of life is not weak- 
ened but strengthened. 

Considered also as to its historical effects, Christianity in- 
fused into an exhausted state of society a new impulse, and 
offered to a venerable civilisation a world full of fresh problems. 
This is specially evident when we compare the philosophers of 
the declining period of antiquity with the earlier Church Fathers. 
The philosophers far surpass the latter in the perfection of form, 
in the analysis of conceptions, indeed in the whole matter of 
theoretical demonstration. But upon all their work there weighs 
the fatal consciousness of the emptiness and worthlessness of 
human existence; it prevented them from putting forth their 
strength, and forbade all dedication to high aims. It is therefore 



142 CHRISTIANITY 

perfectly intelligible that the victory fell to the Church Fathers, 
who had a new life, a great future, to offer, and who could 
summon men to triumphant, joyous activity, and to positive 
happiness. 

(/3) THE CLOSER UNION OF MANKIND 

The new life effects a profound change in the reciprocal rela- 
tions of men, but not so much through doctrines and ideas as 
through the influence of actual results. Just as the elevation of 
one's being to freedom and unity reveals the man to himself, 
brings him nearer to himself, so the mutual understanding be- 
tween men may increase, they may become more intelligible to 
one another, and live more in and with another. Moreover, the 
imperishable worth which the life with God confers upon the 
individual makes man of greater worth also to his fellowmen; 
amid the evils of actual life one may here fall back upon an 
inner being founded in God, and so hold firmly to an ideal of 
man without at the same time falsely idealising him. Only 
through such an emphasis of human worth is Christianity en- 
abled to make love the fundamental feeling, and set high aims 
for action. It exhibits in this respect the greatest unlikeness to 
all systems of mere sympathy, the languid resignation of which 
eventually weighs men down, and paralyses all vital feeling. 
These can never produce the joy in human life and in human 
nature, nor the expansion and blessings of fellowship, which 
Christianity knows. 

The life in common is upheld and strengthened by the con- 
sciousness of a similarity of destiny and of inner character. 
However different the stations and callings which life may 
assign to individuals, the one supreme task of forming a new 
nature is common to all. Even moral differences pale and van- 
ish so soon as man ceases to compare himself with other men, 
as did the Greeks, and looks instead to an ideal of divine per- 
fection, thus applying an absolute and not a relative standard. 

But those general characteristics of the kingdom of God which 
produce greater solidarity and intimacy among human relations 



THE FOUNDATION 143 

are further strengthened by the unifying power of all great his- 
torical movements. The divine revelations on which life de- 
pends are not vouchsafed merely to individuals, but to humanity 
as a whole, in the sense that they require for their expression 
social organisation and social forces. Thus humanity becomes 
united in an inner community of life and in the upbuilding of a 
new kingdom; in such a community the individual can both 
receive from and contribute to the whole; the doing and suffer- 
ing of each acquires a significance for all. Indeed, each event in 
the life of the individual is experienced in and through the des- 
tiny of the whole, and rests upon the latter as upon its abiding 
foundation. 

To be sure, such changes bring to light great problems and 
produce mighty conflicts. The growth of the life in common 
must, not suppress the independence of the individual. It was, 
in fact, Christianity that so immeasurably exalted the individual 
and, particularly during the first centuries, made all advance- 
ment dependent upon his freedom. How easily, on the con- 
trary, the antagonistic forces which the Christian scheme of life 
should aim to harmonise fall asunder and oppose one another, 
is shown by the incessant conflicts running through the whole 
course of Christian history. 

(7) THE ACQUISITION OF A HISTORY 

The ancient views of life bore throughout an unhistorical 
character. The numerous philosophical doctrines of the pro- 
cession of endless similar cycles, which continually return to the 
starting point, were only the expression of the conviction that 
all movement at bottom brings nothing new, and that life offers 
no prospect of further improvement. When the days were good, 
this feeling occasioned no depression, since life was fully occu- 
pied with the present; but when they were bad, the sense of 
emptiness was inevitable. The profoundest Greek thinkers, 
indeed, viewed the temporal life as a reproduction of eternity; 
but they knew nothing of an entrance of the eternal into time, 



144 CHRISTIANITY 

a meeting of time and eternity. Christianity radically changed 
all this. For in the Christian view, the Eternal reveals the whole 
depths of His nature within time, thereby sets infinite tasks, and 
produces in the world of man the most stupendous movements. 
For here the battle rages over salvation or destruction, here the 
liberation from the mere state of nature is attained, here the up- 
building of a kingdom of God is accomplished. The presence of 
the eternal in time is what first produces a world -history, and 
gives a true history also to individual life. With such a libera- 
tion from an inherited nature, individuals, peoples, and even the 
whole of humanity are no longer confined within prescribed 
limits; by means of revolutions and reforms they can make 
new beginnings and create new powers; they can battle with 
themselves, and overcome themselves. A mighty desire, a di- 
vine discontent, is implanted in life. 

But again, these fruitful changes are offset by serious com- 
plications. How the eternal can enter into history without 
ceasing to be eternal; how, without loss, the divine can share in 
the growth and change inseparable from time, remain an unex- 
plained mystery. Thus a direct contradiction and a stubborn 
conflict mark the whole history of Christianity. One party sets 
the eternal before history, the other history before the eternal. 
In the latter case, there is the tendency to concentrate attention 
upon fixed and limited facts, and to let these work exclusively 
and directly upon mankind, but also the attendant danger of 
confining the present to a single point in the past, and of unduly 
restricting the range of Christian thought; in the former, we 
have the effort to comprehend Christianity in its essence and 
effect as a universal and continuous fact, to transform all that 
has been achieved in history into the immediate present, and at 
the same time to illuminate it with knowledge, but also the cor- 
responding danger of dissipating the historical element and of 
dissolving the whole too much into a mere view of the world. 
This entails tremendous conflicts; but amid all the heat of strife 
there abide the acquisition of a history and the exaltation of 
action. 



THE FOUNDATION 145 



(S) THE NEW ATTITUDE TOWARD SUFFERING 

As in the actual fashioning of Christian life contrasts contin- 
ually meet, so an appreciation of it must take into consideration 
conflicting influences; their joint effect is to produce a thor- 
oughly individual type of feeling for life. It is in direct contra- 
diction with the character of Christianity to begin by minimizing 
suffering and by assuring men that misery is immaterial: 
scarcely anything repels so much as the impertinence of rep- 
resenting the world as it is as a realm of reason ; if it were such, 
indeed, the whole question of turning to a new world — the 
main thesis of Christianity — would be superfluous. The fact 
is, Christianity, with the new seriousness it lends to life, with its 
insistence upon absolute perfection, with its enhancement of the 
worth of man and of each individual, and its strong desire for 
love and happiness, must immeasurably increase man's sensi- 
tiveness to darkness and woe. Hence it does not forbid us the 
full recognition of suffering; rather, it characterises indifference 
toward suffering as a hardening of the heart. It was, in fact, 
just this, that Christianity permits the frank admission of all the 
evils and woes of existence, and allows the sense of suffering the 
fullest expression, that won the minds of men at the outset and 
has won them ever since; this feeling, which was elsewhere 
suppressed, found here a free expansion, and in consequence 
life as a whole increased in warmth and in sincerity. 

But, on the other hand, Christianity is as far removed from 
a languid pessimism as it is from a shallow optimism. The 
immediate world, whose misery threatens to overwhelm us, is 
not the be-all and end-all; a belief, founded as upon a rock, here 
points beyond the present to a realm of divine life transcending 
all conflicts. That reason is the root of all reality is a thesis now 
defended with greater energy than ever before. Moreover, 
there is an inner exaltation of suffering. God has taken the 
burden of it upon Himself, and thereby sanctified it; from ob- 
stinate unreason, it is now converted into a means of the awak- 



i 4 6 CHRISTIANITY 

ening, purification, and regeneration of life; the descent serves 
as an ascent, destruction as an exaltation, the dark pathway of 
death as the portal of a new life. As the divine love shrank not 
from the deepest abyss, so also in the human sphere suffering 
enkindles a self-sacrificing devotion and an active love. It is in 
suffering that the most intimate relation to God originates; 
while the common fact of suffering proves to be the strongest 
bond between men. Accordingly, the practical attitude toward 
suffering changes. The misery of human existence is no longer 
pushed to one side and kept at a distance, it is sought out and 
energetically taken in hand, in order to manifest love in reliev- 
ing it and to awaken love in response. The conflict with suffer- 
ing, particularly its inner conquest, becomes the principal aim 
of effort. In this spirit, Christianity can exalt the despised cross 
into its symbol, and direct thought and meditation continually 
toward suffering, without falling under the latter's power. 
Whereas ancient art, even when representing death, aimed by 
an impressive portrayal of it to lead men's thought back to life, 
Christian art, with its pictures of saints and martyrs sets death 
in the midst of the labours and joys of life, not in order to cast 
a gloom over life, but to invest it with sublimer, invisible rela- 
tions. 

This attitude toward suffering has degenerated often enough 
into trivial sentimentality or morbid pleasure. Such a tendency, 
however, is in direct conflict with the spirit of Christianity, since 
not only is it opposed by the depth of Christian earnestness, but 
also suffering and unreason by no means disappear with the 
inner victory over them; on the contrary, evil remains a perma- 
nently insoluble mystery. The development of the Christian 
life itself involves far too many conflicts, cares, and doubts, 
to leave any room for comfortable self-indulgence. Not only do 
those cares and conflicts disturb the bliss of Christian faith, but 
the appearance of new joys increases the sense of pain. The 
inner aspect of the struggle is indeed changed, but the conflict 
itself has not ceased; for the strength of the Christian life does 
not lie in a simple destruction of evil, but in the power to oppose 



THE FOUNDATION 147 

to the principle of evil a new and a higher world. Hence, 
within a single life two opposite moods make themselves felt, 
a painful and a joyful one: the suffering cannot disturb the 
joy, the joy cannot extinguish the suffering. But, inasmuch as 
each develops itself completely and without obstruction, exist- 
ence acquires inner breadth and ceaseless movement. And that 
which thus fills life also finds expression in art; for nothing is 
more characteristic of Christian art than complete emancipa- 
tion of mood and fluctuation between the opposite extremes of 
darkness and light, misery and bliss. 

(d) The Complications and the True Greatness 0} Christianity 

Thus Christianity abounds in contrasts; its conduct of life 
bears a thoroughly antithetical character, — just as its chief 
minds are fond of using antitheses, declaring the difficult to be 
easy, the distant to be near, the miracle to be a commonplace. 
The collision of these opposing tendencies produces ceaseless 
movement; for, as a whole, the Christian life remains an ever- 
renewed quest and conflict; it retains to the end an unfinished, 
unreconciled, unrationalised character, ever calls forth new 
problems, becomes itself a problem, and must ever reascend to 
its own true height. Dangers and hindrances threaten it step by 
step; its history cannot be a peaceful progress, it becomes an 
alternation of advance and retreat, of ascent and descent, of 
decline and recovery. 

One thing in particular results in incessant perplexity, the 
fact, namely, that Christianity erects within the domain of 
nature a supernatural world, that it continually seeks to rise 
above the conditions which are the essential means of its own 
life. An immediate consequence is the difficulty, indeed the 
impossibility, of an appropriate representation in thoughts and 
conceptions; every exposition remains a mere approximation, 
retains a symbolic character. But the demand of man for tangi- 
ble truth and definite results allows this imperfection to be 
readily misunderstood or forgotten; there results crystallisation, 



148 CHRISTIANITY 

coarsening, falling back upon nature, and the most serious con- 
fusions become inevitable. 

No less are the higher motives of conduct continually over 
borne by those upon a lower level. The new affirmation of life., 
with its bliss, is often degraded to the service of the natural 
greed of life, the selfish demand for happiness; what ought to 
lift the man, by decisive volition, above himself, becomes in- 
stead a confirmation of his natural state. When, further, par- 
ties arise, and the powers of the world seek to press Christianity 
into their service, to exploit it for their own ends ; when, in par- 
ticular, all the inwardness, self-denial, and humility before God 
which characterise it, are perversely interpreted as a command 
of slavish obedience to men and to human institutions, of an 
uncomplaining endurance of all manner of unreason, then the 
vision becomes more and more clouded. Can we deny that, 
seen from without, the history of Christianity presents, on 
the whole, an unedifying spectacle, and that it is only when 
we consider the innermost soul of its development that an 
appreciative estimate becomes possible? Christianity, in fact, 
has experienced in a peculiar degree the truth of the 
Kantian saying, "Even the sublimest of things is belittled at 
the hands of man, so soon as he appropriates it to his own 
uses." 

Added to these inner difficulties is the incessant hostility from 
without, the conflict with doubt, which necessarily increases 
with the progress of civilisation. The immediate impression of 
the world is against Christianity; and their ways lead ever 
further apart. Consequently, in order to assert itself, it is com- 
pelled to insist more and more energetically upon a reversal of 
the entire view of the world, to oppose to the visible world an 
invisible one, and to defend the latter as the soul of all reality. 
This requires not only a summoning of the whole personality, 
but a passage through experiences and changes; also a heroic 
elevation of mind and being. For, notwithstanding its inward- 
ness and tenderness, the Christian life has a heroic character. 
But its heroism is radically different from the ancient heroism; 



THE FOUNDATION 149 

it is a heroism of the inner nature, and of simple humanity; 
a heroism in little things, a greatness arising from joyous faith 
and ungrudging self-sacrifice. 

So far as human and historical relations are concerned, these 
characteristics lead us to expect endless complications; more 
definitely than in other religions does the history of Christianity 
become an arduous effort to realise its own being, a struggle to 
attain the highest development of its own nature. Yet no mere 
struggle; for it has been also a victory and a regeneration; we 
only need to look from the single phases to the whole, and to 
penetrate beyond the outward appearance to the moving causes, 
in order to recognise that a mighty life-force has been implanted 
in the world, and to become aware of the profoundest effects 
upon the whole of human existence. 

Christianity has revealed a new world, and, through the pos- 
sibility of sharing in it, conferred upon human nature an incom- 
parable greatness and dignity, and upon the work of life an in- 
tense earnestness and a real history. It could not simply abol- 
ish the misery of the world, but it could rise above it as a whole, 
and thus inwardly triumph over its hostility. It has not made 
life easier but more difficult; yet in an original innermost recess 
it has lifted all oppressive weight from man by basing his nature 
upon freedom, and by breaking all the bonds of fate and of un- 
yielding Nature. It has brought no definitive solution, no com- 
fortable repose; it has plunged man into grievous unrest and 
hard struggle; it has thrown his whole existence into ceaseless 
commotion. But his life has not only been made far more sig- 
nificant by these conflicts and trials, there is held in continual 
readiness for him a region where the strife does not penetrate, 
and whence peace is diffused over the whole of existence. With- 
al, Christianity has not only called individuals to an ennobling 
change of life, but also opened to peoples and to humanity the 
possibility of a continual renewal — one might almost say, of an 
eternal youth. From all the errors of its relations to the world 
it could always withdraw into a realm of faith and contemplation 
as into its true home, in order there to recuperate its powers, 



150 CHRISTIANITY 

and even to restore its outward aspect. All the criticisms of 
advancing culture, all the opposition of scientific work, do not 
touch in the least its deepest essence, since from the first its aim 
was to be something other and higher than mere culture, since, 
in particular, it sought not to represent or even to further a pres- 
ent world, but to create a new one. Hence Christianity, not- 
withstanding its unsolved problems and its abuses, has become 
the moving force in the world's history, the spiritual home of 
humanity; and such it remains even where the mind is filled 
with opposition to its ecclesiastical interpretation. 

II. JESUS'S VIEW OF LIFE 
(a) Preliminary Remarks 

That the spirit of Christianity gained so much power in the 
midst of an indifferent or hostile world, and that all the changes 
within Christianity itself could not destroy an abiding founda- 
tion, nor all the disruption extinguish an inner fellowship, was 
due, above all, to the supreme personality and the constructive 
life-work of Jesus. As the revelation of a new world, this life- 
work necessarily implies a coherent body of beliefs, a sort of 
view of life; and little as this view of life falls in with the philo- 
sophical movement of thought, it cannot be omitted from 
the present investigation, since all the views of life emanat- 
ing from the Christian community point back to it, and since 
even beyond this community it has exerted the profoundest 
influence. 

The unique difficulties of the problem are sufficiently obvious. 
In the first place, there is the difficulty with the sources, which 
for a long time were accepted without question, but which have 
given rise to innumerable doubts on the part of modern criti- 
cism. That we know Jesus only through tradition, although 
a very ancient one, and that with the tradition is mingled the 
subjective character and interpretation of the witness, no one 
can deny to-day who does not confound religion and historical 



THE FOUNDATION 151 

research, and thus surrender all pretensions to an unprejudiced 
judgment. But it is possible to exaggerate this difficulty, by 
mistaking what the matter of vital importance is. That which 
is characteristic in a truly great personality cannot be obliterated 
by any amount of subjective testimony; an incomparable spir- 
itual individuality does not admit of being invented and facti- 
tiously perfected; if Jesus appears to be such, even when seen 
through the mists of tradition, then we may, indeed we must, 
rely upon the truth of the impression. But now, the sayings 
contained in the three first Gospels, with their wonderful similes 
and parables, present a thoroughly characteristic and harmoni- 
ous picture of Jesus; the more we understand them in their 
simple literal sense, and exclude all extraneous interpretation, 
the more individual, the greater, the more unique, appear his 
personality and his world of thought. The life, at once trans- 
parent and unfathomable, that rises before us, enables us to 
look deep into the soul of the man, and brings his personality as 
a whole near to every heart, as near as only man can be to 
man. In the innermost traits of his being, Jesus is more 
transparent and familiar to us than any hero of the world's 
history. 

The doubt and conflict which none the less existed and still 
exist as to the view to be taken of him are due less to the sources 
themselves than to extraneous convictions which obscure our 
vision. Very early, faith in Christ's work of reconciliation and 
redemption supplanted the interest in the life and teachings of 
the man Jesus; in particular, the ecclesiastical doctrine of the 
divinity of Christ was little favorable to a precise and accurate 
conception of Jesus's personality. The separation of two 
natures, whose union indeed might be decreed, but could not 
be brought to a living reality, led to the constant confusion, in 
the faith of the Christian church, of two views of Christ: on the 
one hand he was divine, existing in transcendent majesty, but 
possessing an abstract and featureless character; on the other, 
he was human, with a predominance of the traits of tenderness 
and suffering, yet there was here a failure to recognise the 



1 52 CHRISTIANITY 

joy in life and the heroic power of Jesus; often, too, there 
was a tendency toward the sentimental, particularly when the 
conception of vicarious suffering occupied the foreground of the 
picture. 

When, however, the traditional view of the Church became 
unsettled, new dangers arose. Even in differing from the 
Church, men did not wish to surrender the relation to Jesus; 
hence each side sought to strengthen its position by an appeal 
to this relationship. The result was that each found in it what 
was favourable to his own view; and thus it was the varying re- 
quirements of the time which modified the historical picture 
first one way then another. But from early rationalism down to 
the present time such a procedure resulted in something too ad- 
vanced, enlightened, and cultivated ; not only the contemporary 
historical colouring, but even the distinguishing and overmaster- 
ing elements of Jesus's character, became obscured. Whoever 
makes of Jesus a normal man finds it nearly impossible to do 
justice to his greatness. As opposed to such a levelling rational- 
ism, there has sprung up of late a movement of historical re- 
search which insists upon a recognition of the simple facts. 
That is of course right: only it should not be forgotten that 
epoch-making personalities never reveal themselves in single 
utterances, but only as a whole, and hence from within; and 
that such an apprehension of the whole is only possible to a cor- 
responding whole of personal conviction. Historical research 
does not so much decide the contest as transfer it to other 
ground. In general, the estimate and comprehension of great 
personalities resolves itself in the end into a conflict of princi- 
ples; and the interpretation of the personality of Jesus will 
never be free from strife, but will always divide men into oppos- 
ing parties. Every solution of the problem from the historical 
side, however, must undertake both to do full justice to the 
peculiarities belonging to the history of the time, and also to 
make it intelligible how a doctrine which belonged in the first 
place wholly to its own epoch, can have a message for all ages, 
can communicate eternal truth to all. 



THE FOUNDATION 153 



(b) The Elements of Jesus's View of Life 

The essence of Jesus's teaching consists in the proclaiming of 
a new order of the world and of life, i. e., the "Kingdom of 
Heaven," which should be far removed from, indeed in positive 
opposition to, existing conditions; in fact, opposed to all the 
natural doing and contriving of men, to the "world." In Jesus's 
conception, this new order is by no means merely an inner trans- 
formation, affecting only the heart and mind, and leaving the 
outer world in the same condition. Rather, historical research 
puts it beyond question that the new kingdom means a visible 
order as well, that it aims at a complete change of the state of 
things, and hence cannot tolerate any rival order. Never in 
history has mankind been summoned to a greater revolution 
than here, where not this and that among the conditions but the 
totality of human existence is to be regenerated. If, none the 
less, Jesus stands so far above all mere enthusiasts and revolu- 
tionaries, the difference is in the content of the newly proclaimed 
kingdom. For this content consists in the most intimate fellow- 
ship with God, the blessedness arising from such fellowship, 
and the inseparable union of trust in God with love for men. 
Seen from the point of view of this content, the kingdom of 
heaven is already present in the souls of men ; its glory appears 
not as something distant, something to be awaited, an object 
merely of promise and of hope, but as something very near, 
something obviously present in our midst and at every moment 
tangible — in short, as something fully real even in the sphere of 
human life. Here a new life wells up with new aims and pow- 
ers, a life that represents impressively to humanity a lofty and 
imperishable ideal, a life that unites with a great expectation 
and hope a veritable transfiguration of the present. 

Accordingly, the new kingdom appears above all as a king- 
dom of spiritual life; it lies beyond all outward achievements 
and manifestations. Moreover it does not require a variety of 
activities and sets no complicated problems; it focuses the 



154 CHRISTIANITY 

whole life upon a single act — entrance into the new kingdom, 
full and unreserved dedication to God, the merging of the whole 
being in the fellowship with God. In this fellowship there de- 
velops a pure harmony of innermost life, a complete communi- 
cation of being, a kingdom of all-embracing love and of uncon- 
ditional trust, a secure protection of man in the goodness and 
mercy of the omnipotent God, and, added to all, the highest 
bliss. Here an infinite love allows nothing to be lost, and con- 
fers worth even upon the lowliest. All cares and afflictions dis- 
appear in the immediate presence of the divine love, in the 
"vision" of God; man is lifted above all perplexities and con- 
flicts into a realm of peace, and filled with an overflowing joy in 
the treasures of the new life. 

In this new order, external conditions also are transformed. 
Man is nowhere left at the mercy of hostile powers; even his 
material existence falls under the loving care of the omnipotent 
God. What is needful to man will be supplied to him, and noth- 
ing can befall him which does not contribute to his good. A 
characteristic conception of faith develops, which primarily af- 
fects spiritual goods, then the total welfare. Unquestioning con- 
fidence prevails that everything asked for in sincere trust will be 
granted; for, if men, ''being evil," know how to give good gifts 
to their children, how much more shall God give good things to 
them that ask him? The right faith can "remove mountains." 
Accordingly, nothing is wanting to the perfection of the new 
world, the "Kingdom of Heaven;" nothing hostile remains to 
disturb its blessedness. 

Thought of this new world is constantly accompanied and 
permeated by the analogy with family life, the reciprocal relation 
of parents and children, by which it acquires greater nearness 
and distinctness. Just as in the family there is on the one hand 
a loving, self-sacrificing care, lavished without thought of re- 
ward or gratitude, and on the other, an unreserved devotion, 
and an unquestioning expectation of help; just as not any 
special service, but the whole being, the mere presence of the 
other, gives joy; just as the one offers himself, and the other 



THE FOUNDATION 155 

receives him, as a whole; so it is in a far more intensified and 
perfect form in the kingdom of God. The human may thus 
grow into a likeness to the divine, since it is viewed from the be- 
ginning in the purest and noblest way, in the light of the divine. 
That the new life finds its appropriate expression in the feelings 
and relations of the family, marks its complete antithesis to 
ancient idealism. For, in the latter, domestic and social life were 
modelled after the civic life of the state, and the leading idea of 
conduct was justice, the justice that demands performance, and 
assigns to the individual his deserts in accordance therewith. 
In the new kingdom of adoption, on the contrary, all differences 
of performance, as also of ability, disappear; from the outset all 
men are equally near to God, and objects of an equal love. 
What is here required is the dedication of the whole being, 
strength of desire and sincerity of trust. That is something 
which is possible for everyone; and it needs no outward token. 
The more exclusively everything is made to depend upon this 
one conversion of the being, upon the acceptance of the glad 
tidings, so much the more decisive becomes the demand that 
this acceptance be given without any reservation or any counter- 
vailing, and that all one's doing, without exception, shall pro- 
mote this single aim. As, even in everyday life, a man spends 
all to recover a treasure hidden in his field, or to find the pearl 
of great price of which he has heard, so much the more must 
the incomparably greater spiritual good fill our whole thought. 
The compromises of expediency are strictly forbidden; nothing 
foreign to his purpose is permitted to occupy a man. For, what- 
ever a man seeks penetrates into his mind, and lessens his devo- 
tion to the one object: "where your treasure is, there shall your 
heart be also." Thus arises an uncompromising antagonism 
between the life with God and that with the world ; with the ut- 
most possible emphasis the command is issued not to serve two 
masters; also to put away all vacillating and dallying. " No man 
having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit 
for the kingdom of God." Even useful, indeed highly valuable, 
things become injurious, so soon as they come into conflict with 



156 CHRISTIANITY 

the one purpose ; the eye is to be plucked out, the hand cut off, 
when they endanger the whole man. All deliberating and wav- 
ering must give way before the one thought. "For what doth 
it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?" 
From this elevation of mind and of view follows an emphatic 
rejection of the desire for riches and earthly possessions, of the 
devotion to the sordid cares of everyday, of calculating and 
troubling over the distant future : " Sufficient unto the day is the 
evil thereof." 

Likewise, a characteristic estimate of the value of different 
conditions of life and of feeling develops; whatever arouses a 
strong desire, a hunger and thirst for fellowship with God, is 
lauded; on the contrary, whatever strengthens the earthly ties, 
and gives them worth, is condemned. But since all outward 
success and material comfort do this, there results a complete 
reversal of the customary estimate of men and things. The poor 
and afflicted, the humble and oppressed, are near to the king- 
dom of heaven, the rich and powerful, far; for the former are 
much easier led to a change of heart and to a longing for eternal 
life. No less have the ignorant and the incompetent the advan- 
tage over the clever and the wise, who are self-satisfied and self- 
absorbed. In fact, just as in everyday experience we value the 
more what we have lost, so he who has gone astray, the sinner, is 
an object of special solicitude; not only is the prodigal son im- 
pelled by a stronger desire to return to his home, but also a 
greater warmth of fatherly love goes forth to meet him. 

Similarly, those seem especially near to the new kingdom 
who are of a peaceable and gentle disposition, those whose trans- 
parent nature and purity of heart remain untouched by worldly 
lapses, men of homely and simple dispositions, in whom the per- 
plexities of life have not destroyed the sense for that which is 
most of all needful. Thus, opposed to the everyday occupations 
of trade, to the rigidity and narrowness of humdrum life, there 
here opens, through the fundamental relation of man to God, 
a rich, continuous, ever-flowing life ; out of it rises the sanctuary 
of a new world, destined to sway the whole of reality. 



THE FOUNDATION 157 

The estimate placed upon the life of the child tinas herein its 
confirmation. The child — obviously it is the period of tender, 
helpless infancy that is chiefly in mind — in the simplicity of its 
nature and the innocence of its dependence, in its clinging to 
others, becomes the perfect pattern of those who seek after God : 
they who would enter the kingdom of God are required to turn 
and become as little children. The child's nature is thus for the 
first time adequately revealed to the spiritual eye of mankind. 
Children appear as something sacred and inviolable, as pro- 
tected by the divine love and as specially near to the divine 
nature; "for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do 
always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." In 
these simple words is contained a complete reversal of human 
feeling. Later antiquity, too, had concerned itself not a little 
with the child and his life; statues of children formed a favourite 
subject of its art. But it did not at all behold in the child the 
germ and the prophecy of a new and purer world, rather merely 
full and fresh nature; its works of art "represent throughout 
the drollery, the roguishness, the playfulness, even the quarrel- 
someness and stealth, but above all that lusty health and vigour 
which should be one of the chief attributes of the child" (Burck- 
hardt). Thus it is the outward approximation that so pointedly 
shows the inner divergence between the two worlds. 

In the new life earnestness and gentleness hold an even bal- 
ance. Since the work of salvation is directed mainly toward the 
weak and erring, toward them that labour and are heavy laden ; 
since guilt is blotted out through love and mercy; and since all 
the relations of life are governed, not by rigid standards, but by 
the law of love and by the inward disposition, the yoke proves 
to be easy and the burden light. The Son of man came not to 
destroy but to fulfil, to seek and to save them that are lost. But 
the seriousness of life suffers no detriment by clemency. A di- 
vine order extends its sway over our existence, and the demands 
of a holy will give to human decision a momentous significance. 
The salvation of the immortal soul is at stake. It has been en- 
trusted, like a priceless treasure, to man's keeping; he must, 



158 CHRISTIANITY 

and he will, one day give an account of his stewardship. The 
moment is irrecoverable, and its consequences reach to all 
eternity. 

(c) The Religion and the Ethics 0} Jesus 

Such a profound change in the demands and in the hopes of 
life naturally addresses itself to the whole man, with the result 
that the organisation of the work of life and the progress of 
civilisation lose all interest for him. The sum of duty is com- 
prised in the twofold injunction, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
mind," and " thy neighbour as thyself." Stress is thus laid solely 
on religion and morals. Yet these are not treated as separate 
spheres, but as related aspects of one and the same life. Love 
of God and love of man form an indivisible whole. 

The relations of men to one another rest throughout upon the 
community of nature between man and God, revealed by the 
kingdom of heaven : it is only from God that men gain a rela- 
tionship to one another, only in religion that morals have a 
foundation. On the other hand, morality or humane conduct 
forms an indispensable confirmation of religion; religion mani- 
fests its genuineness by leading men to helpful, self-denying 
conduct. Simple as this seems, and little new as it is in teach- 
ing, the most momentous changes are none the less due to it. 

Religion is here a complete absorption in the life with God, 
a ceaseless turning of the whole nature toward Him; it is that 
ennobling harmony of mind which is full of blessing, and which 
we designate by the term "love." As the core of all life, religion 
is not a mere supplement to other forms of activity, but operates 
in and through all activity as its soul. If religion in this sense is 
an attitude toward the whole of experience, it is a mistake to 
identify it with any special acts. Consequently, there is here the 
most emphatic repudiation of all alleged religious activity which 
is set apart from life in general, and which lays claim to a special 
sanctity, indeed an exclusive holiness. More especially does the 
latter presumption become a source of danger to the simple, 



THE FOUNDATION 159 

fundamental command of love and mercy; for these are easily 
repressed, even destroyed, by it. Yet the universal injunction 
to show love and mercy is an inviolable command of God, while 
the above peculiar claim is merely of human devising. It 
amounts, therefore, to a fatal perversion when such dogmas are 
allowed to weaken the eternal commands and blunt our sense 
for the weal or woe of our fellowmen. Hence the most decisive 
rejection of all claims to exclusive sanctity: of more value than 
all offerings in the temple is the simple command, "Honour thy 
father and thy mother." 

Furthermore, the basing of religion in this manner upon the 
whole nature results in a rejection of everything external, of all 
formulas and all elaborate ritual, together with all those subtle 
distinctions of what is allowed and what not allowed. So, too, 
the most astounding works of religion (prophecies, miracles, 
etc.), are surpassed by the simplest self-denying act, the token 
of true piety. By their fruits we shall know them; not everyone 
that sayeth Lord, Lord, but whoso doeth the will of our heav- 
enly Father, is pleasing to God. 

Indignation at the perversion of religion reaches its height in 
the denunciation of all vain and ostentatious religious acts, all 
display before men, all hierarchical pretensions. Since, in fact, 
all men are equally thrown upon the divine love and mercy, pre- 
tense and self -righteousness only disclose a lack of inner verac- 
ity. Hence the emphatic, incisive warning against hypocrisy, 
the "leaven of the Pharisees;" this designates not so much the 
crude sort of hypocrisy which consists in pretending to the direct 
opposite of what is actually believed, as it does to the more 
subtle inner untruthfulness in which the outward act leaves the 
basis of the nature indifferent, and occupation with divine 
things is united with cunning, with the lust of power, and with 
selfishness. In contrast with such a dark picture, true piety 
shines but the more brightly; it accepts the divine favour in joy- 
ful humility, and manifests its gratitude in silent, untiring love. 

The characteristic peculiarity of the ethics of Jesus lies a step 
further back than it is usual to seek it. It does not consist in 



160 CHRISTIANITY 

striking individual sayings : whoever is familiar with the Greek 
and Judaic writers of the time can point to most of the doctrines, 
similarly expressed, in earlier documents. But the spirit that 
fills all the teachings with a living power is new ; even the old it 
makes new, and the simple great. For, while aside from Chris- 
tianity there were only the aspirations and efforts of individuals, 
— the refined reflections of thinkers and the tender moods of 
sensitive souls — the kingdom of heaven presents a world em- 
bracing the whole being; the sayings of Jesus become an ex- 
pression, a witness, of an original, ceaselessly flowing life. 
Even the most difficult requirements now possess the certainty 
of fulfilment. What in its isolation might appear paradoxical, 
becomes in its new relations self-evident; all the lifelessness and 
indefiniteness of earlier plans is overcome. Hence a great ad- 
vance is unmistakable. What existed merely in thought has be- 
come deed; what was an aim and an ideal has become living 
reality. 

Accordingly, all the principal directions of the new movement 
manifest, in addition to their connection with the past, a very 
fruitful further development. It is in accordance with the gen- 
eral character of the age that the moral problem is not con- 
nected with external works, but with the inner disposition. Yet 
this general desire lacked for its complete satisfaction an inde- 
pendent and comprehensive inner world; hence the spiritual 
life of the individual remained isolated, and all his laborious 
striving might appear as lost, so far as the community, and even 
the vital basis of his own being, were concerned. But all that 
now undergoes a complete transformation, since the union with 
God transfers man to a self-sufficing inner world, in which he is 
wholly absorbed. Whatever takes place in such an inner world 
has, ipso facto, a reality and a worth. The complete subordina- 
tion of performance to disposition is no longer a pretentious 
assertion, but a simple fact, a matter of course, since action is 
directed from the outset, not toward the outward circumstances, 
but toward the kingdom of God present within. If the action is 
consummated in this inner world, the external act has only to 



THE FOUNDATION 161 

make known what there took place; it receives all its worth 
from that life-giving basis. The disposition itself grows there- 
by from a passive mood to a vigorous act. At the same time, 
the distinctions of greater and lesser achievement lose all mean- 
ing; the lesser attainment becomes superior to the greater, 
whenever it represents a higher value in the disposition. The 
change that has taken place is manifest in the parable of the 
talents: the question here is not how much natural capacity is 
involved, nor how much outward result is attained, but solely 
whether the man's whole power, be it ever so little, has been 
put forth in singleness of purpose; it is this inner achievement 
that alone determines the worth of the act. The result is a com- 
plete liberation from the destiny imposed by natural endow- 
ment and by the accidents of outward success; and the worth 
of the man is based solely upon what pertains to his own act, the 
act of his whole being. The power of external destiny had in- 
deed already been broken by Plato; for he placed the greatness 
of man and the worth of life in the strength and harmony of the 
inner nature. But in the inner nature itself there remained an- 
other, still more powerful, destiny, — the natural traits, and the 
limits of mental capacity: the liberation from these was first 
accomplished by Jesus. 

The new inwardness of the moral life represents at the same 
time an elevation above all external formulas and precepts; in 
the new kingdom man cannot be bound by any dogma imposed 
from without. Instead, there springs from within the sternest 
subjection of the whole nature to a spiritual law. Where it is 
a question of transforming human existence to its deepest roots 
and throughout its whole extent, even the least apparent ex- 
pressions of life, the lightest thoughts, become subject to moral 
judgment. Hence every form of enmity, every form of unchas- 
tity, every form of untruthfulness, is forbidden, and not merely 
such as are manifest in overt acts, and prohibited among men. 
Neither are any expedient compromises with the alien world 
ever tolerated; on the contrary, the perfect ideal in all its ful- 
ness must be realised, the high requirement strictly fulfilled. 



162 CHRISTIANITY 

Thus there is developed the ideal of a perfection of the whole 
being, of a moral likeness to God: "Be ye therefore perfect, 
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." 

A second chief trait of the ethical advance here inaugurated is 
the mild character exhibited in its gentleness, humility, and 
love of enemies. In this instance also, careful discrimination is 
necessary, in order accurately to estimate the progress made. 
There is a gentleness which arises from the experience of ex- 
treme suffering, from a consciousness of the vanity of all human 
things and the implication of all men in a common misery — the 
gentleness of weakness; there is another gentleness which 
springs from a joyful gratitude for the great blessings allotted to 
man, for the wealth of unmerited goodwill and love vouchsafed 
to him — the gentleness of strength. The former gentleness 
exhibits sympathetic feeling, and will indeed alleviate suf- 
fering in a given instance with a kind of languid helpfulness; 
but it will not undertake to create new conditions. The ac- 
tive spirit of gentleness, on the other hand, seeks out suffering 
wherever it may be found, takes it vigorously in hand, and, if it 
cannot completely relieve it, will at least provide the means of an 
essential victory over it by the upbuilding from within of a 
kingdom of love. In the former case, we have a refinement of 
the natural feelings; in the latter, a regeneration of the inner- 
most being. The one is seen in later antiquity, the other in the 
morality taught by Jesus. In the latter, the dominant note is 
the conviction that it is through the divine love and mercy, and 
without merit of his own, that man is freed from all suffering and 
called to infinite blessedness. This becomes a source of over- 
flowing joy and gratitude, and creates a gentle and peaceable 
disposition. The new exhortation is, not to repel violence and 
hatred however much evil men may do, but to triumph over it 
inwardly by submissiveness and love. Every wrong without 
exception is to be forgiven, in view of the boundless forgiveness 
which man expects and receives from God. 

In this new kingdom man cannot be intent upon having 
precedence of others, or upon reserving anything for himself. 



THE FOUNDATION 163 

Rather, the conviction of his complete dependence upon the 
merciful love of God produces a deep humility and a cheerful 
readiness to subordinate self to others, and to serve them: 
"Just as the Son of man is come, not that he may be served, 
but that he may serve." Likewise, all dispute with others, all 
dwelling upon their faults, is prohibited. This spirit of genuine 
leniency is manifest in Jesus's saying regarding the attitude of 
men toward his mission : " For he that is not against us is for us." 

But even above the requirement that man should live peace- 
ably, show clemency, and be eager to serve his fellowmen, is the 
command to love one's enemies, and gladly to do good to them. 
In this instance also the teaching is not entirely new; but the 
revolution in life which makes the impossible possible, that not 
only gives an injunction but creates the power to obey it, is new. 
For, unquestionably, the injunction conflicts with natural feel- 
ing; it would be impossible of fulfilment without the establish- 
ment of a fundamentally new relation among men. But such 
a relation is established by the common Fatherhood of God; 
this bond unites men from within in the closest relationship, 
and kindles a love that stirs the innermost being, destroys all 
unfeeling emotions, and transforms enmity into brotherly love. 

Closely connected with the features already discussed is the 
disappearance of all social distinctions, in view of the one great 
purpose in life. This also corresponds to a general movement 
of the time; but the new requirement, ineffectual as mere the- 
ory, attains in Christianity the power of complete fulfilment, 
since here the essence of life is really sought in an inner core of 
pure humanity which differences of station, education, etc., do 
not reach. The humanity in men becomes paramount, wherever 
feeling and effort are governed by the sense of the common 
Fatherhood of God. 

The ready sympathy for all sorts and conditions of men, and 
the helpful and self-sacrificing character of the morality here 
unfolded, make the care of the poor and unfortunate an object of 
special commendation; in fact, to give all one has to the poor 
appears as the perfection of conduct; indeed, it becomes the 



i6 4 CHRISTIANITY 

peculiar token of the genuineness of conversion to the kingdom 
of God. In contrast with entrance into the new kingdom, all 
worldly concerns are necessarily regarded with indifference; to 
cling to them becomes an unallowable departure from that upon 
which salvation alone depends. Accordingly, there is here no 
room for an interest in civilisation, in art and science, in the 
shaping of social conditions, etc. True, the parables of the leaven 
and of the grain of mustard seed presuppose a vigorous further 
development, and require a tireless activity; they who are the 
light of the world should let their light shine before men, should 
preach from the housetops; the salt of the earth must not lose 
its savour. But all this concerned the extension of the kingdom 
of heaven; it did not mean that general conditions were to be 
permeated with the new life. These were matters of indiffer- 
ence to Jesus, and necessarily so; nevertheless, it would be a 
mistake to ascribe asceticism to him, for how could one be 
called ascetic who inaugurates a new world, and with mighty 
power summons the whole man to joyous labour for it ? Who- 
ever is repelled by this indifference of Jesus to all merely worldly 
culture can only forthwith let the whole of Christianity go, since 
the revelation of a new world, opposed to the temporal sphere, 
is inseparable from it. 

Thus, in the proclaiming of the kingdom of heaven, there 
emerges a real world which is thoroughly original, genuine, and, 
in its simplicity, revolutionary. Here everything is youthful and 
fresh; the whole is animated by a mighty impulse to gain the 
entire world for the new life. But just because the new king- 
dom cannot brook a rival, but aims at dominating the whole 
world, so its realisation is not deferred to some indefinite future 
time; rather its purpose is to establish itself at once, and forth- 
with to subdue all. Hence existence is thrown into the deepest 
commotion, although not into headlong haste and turbid pas- 
sion. For the aspiration which Christianity arouses involves 
the full certainty of personal possession ; and above all outward 
activity there hovers the majesty of a life filled with blessed 
peace. 



THE FOUNDATION 165 



(d) The Collision with the World 

After developing the distinctive characteristics of the new 
life, we must next consider its encounter with the existing world. 
The relation to the age is peculiarly significant, owing to the 
unique position which, in his own view and soon also in the be- 
lief of his followers, Jesus occupied. For he proclaims the fact 
of a kingdom of God not merely as a general truth, but de- 
clares that even now, and through him, it is to become actual 
and rule over all the earth. Everyone is summoned to a change 
of heart and to entrance into the kingdom of heaven. "The 
time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand." 

But the answer of his contemporaries did not long remain un- 
certain. It soon appeared that the multitude was momentarily 
attracted and even carried away, but not permanently won; 
while the attitude of those in authority was decidedly hostile. 
The official religion, as has often been the case within Christen- 
dom itself, became the bitterest enemy of a less artificial and 
truer life. Thus those who are bidden come not to the feast 
prepared for them; the one matter of supreme concern meets 
with cold indifference, or with unfriendly rejection. Indeed, 
the rejection even goes the length of a relentless enmity. Yet 
upon the other hand, even the best among the small band of 
followers, notwithstanding the loyalty of their devotion and the 
warmth of their love, are far enough from meeting the require- 
ments of the upbuilding of a new world: the only truly great 
Apostle was not won until after Jesus's death. 

Thus the prospect of an immediate triumph of the new king- 
dom inevitably vanished. Without doubt Jesus himself felt 
this, and was thrown by it into profound agitation and conflict. 
But in these conflicts he won an inner victory which was com- 
plete and entire. Above all opposition, above all doubt and 
anxiety, rises the steadfast faith that the triumph of evil can 
be only momentary; for not only do all perplexities and doubts 
shatter themselves against the inner presence of the kingdom of 



166 CHRISTIANITY 

God, but the kingdom itself shall achieve also an outward tri- 
umph. The Messiah will return, to be the Judge of men and 
to establish a kingdom of God upon the earth; the stone which 
the builders rejected shall then become the head of the corner. 

How far these experiences and feelings were unfolded in 
Jesus's own mind, and modified his world of thought, it is now 
hardly possible to decide; for here more than anywhere else it 
is presumable that a later age attributed its own moods and 
struggles to Jesus himself. In any case, the seriousness of his 
conviction must have been increased and an element of sadness 
added to it, when the opposition of the world became so over- 
whelming, and the upward path led through apparent destruc- 
tion. Deeper must have become the shadows, more powerful 
and moving the summons. The chief aim now was to remain 
steadfast to the work begun, bravely to endure persecution, wil- 
lingly to bear even the most grievous wrong, and to look upon 
the evil of the present as insignificant when compared with the 
future glory, which thenceforth far more dominated his thoughts. 
At the same time, the separation from the world, and the demand 
of an exclusive devotion to the one aim, became still more im- 
perative; while, on the other hand, all indifference and hesita- 
tion were still more decidedly regarded as hostile. This accen- 
tuation of the opposition probably occasioned the saying: "He 
that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not 
with me scattereth." Likewise that other saying, which illus- 
trates in the most striking manner the stern exclusion of any 
middle course: "If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not 
his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and breth- 
ren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my 
disciple." 

Yet in the midst of all the disturbances and conflicts there is 
not only a complete confidence in final victory, but even afflic- 
tion loses its obstinacy and irrationality in the presence of the 
thought that the divine decree has appointed everything to be 
what it is, and that even the malice of men is made to serve the 
will of God. And even if the thought of an atonement designed 



THE FOUNDATION 167 

to propitiate the wrath of God at the sins of the world was for- 
eign to Jesus himself, it was certainly his conviction that the 
afflictions of the just serve for the salvation of others, and thus 
become an evidence of love. In any case, the various dangers 
failed to make him hesitate; the last decisive step was taken 
with vigorous courage; the assault upon the citadel of the enemy 
was boldly made. 

The suffering and death of Jesus have attained a peculiar sig- 
nificance in the thought of Christendom; together with the doc- 
trine of the resurrection, they have become the central point in 
the faith of the Church. A discussion of these questions cannot 
be undertaken in the present work; the author's personal views 
upon them have been fully expressed in his book entitled, "The 
Truth Contained in Religion." Here it must suffice to point 
out that even a purely historical view of the death of Jesus 
would be forced to ascribe to it a far greater importance than 
the end of life is wont to have with other heroes. In the first 
place, the manliness and strength inherent in the personality of 
Jesus are thrown into relief and visibly emphasised by his 
Courageous attack upon a foe so superior in power, and by his 
steadfast endurance to the end. Then his death, with its deeply 
moving and agitating impressions, appeared to reveal for the 
first time to the inner eye of his followers the meaning of what 
was taking place around them; not till then did the figure of the 
Master grow in their minds to superhuman dimensions ; not till 
then did such powers of reverence and zealous love as were 
latent within them burst forth into flames. The accounts of 
Christian tradition respecting a bodily resurrection are subject 
to historical criticism, and must encounter grave doubts. But 
beyond all question are the facts that out of the sudden ruin of 
their hopes there arose in the minds of the disciples an immov- 
able conviction of the inner nearness of their Lord and of his 
speedy second coming to judge the world; and that the over- 
whelming catastrophe did not overawe and weaken them, but 
raised them above themselves, and endowed them with the ca- 
pacity for a heroism and martyrdom of their own. The un- 



i68 CHRISTIANITY 

yielding spirit which Jesus manifested toward a hostile and out- 
wardly so superior world, and the dignity which he preserved in 
his conflict with it, gave to the disciples the certainty of another 
order of things, and kindled also in them the courage to take up 
the work apparently trampled under foot, and to carry it for- 
ward with unbounded energy. Moreover, throughout the fur- 
ther development of Christianity, Jesus's suffering and death 
have given a peculiar intimacy to the relation of men to his per- 
sonality; particularly throughout all the struggles and misfor- 
tunes of early Christianity the keynote heard is, Let us show our 
gratitude to Jesus, who suffered and died for us; let us stand 
fast, even to laying down our lives in a witness of death, the 
"most perfect work of love." True, the feeling of individuals 
often enough degenerated into sentimental trifling; but, rising 
above individual feeling, the tragedy of Jesus's death brings 
vividly before the consciousness of Christendom the tragic char- 
acter of our own world; it shows with a force not to be ignored 
the dark mystery and the deep seriousness of human destiny; it 
successfully prevents all superficial attempts to rationalise exist- 
ence, and all expedient compromises with the world as it is. 
Other religions have become world powers through their vic- 
tories, Christianity through its defeat. For there grew out of its 
outward ruin and apparent disappearance the triumphant certi- 
tude of a new world, the firm conviction that in this new world 
are to be found the foundation and the security of all good; 
hence all the problems of existence are, for Christianity, concen- 
trated upon a single point, and the turning of life toward the 
heroic and the supersensible is achieved. Yet there ceaselessly 
arises thence for men a great question, a great doubt, a great 
summons, a great hope. 

(e) The Permanent Result 

In considering the permanent significance of Jesus, we should 
remind ourselves that nowhere does the leading personality 
mean more than in the sphere of religion — this is in accordance 



THE FOUNDATION 169 

with the chief aim of religion. Taken seriously, this aim may 
appear to be altogether unattainable. Or, does it not seem 
hopeless to lift man, in the midst of his human existence, to di- 
vinity; to ensure him, notwithstanding his dependence upon the 
course of the world, a self-dependent soul; to reveal to him, in 
the midst of temporal limitations, an eternity ? Without an in- 
version of the natural view of the world and of life, without a 
miracle, it cannot be done. But this miracle is first accom- 
plished in the life and being of creative personalities; then by 
means of the nearness and tangibility thus won it can be com- 
municated also to others, and finally become a fact for the whole 
of mankind. Hence the spiritual depth of religions is meas- 
ured, and their character determined, chiefly by the personal 
traits of their founders; it is they who infuse an inner life into 
the framework of doctrines and ordinances, who oppose to all 
doubts an indisputable body of facts, who continually bring re- 
ligion back from stereotyped formulas to the fresh vigour of its 
source. 

When so much depends upon the personality of the founder, 
it was an incalculable advantage for Christianity, giving it a 
great superiority over all other religions, to be based upon the 
life and being of a personality which was raised so high and so 
securely above the lower things of human nature, and above the 
antagonisms which ordinarily cleave life in twain. There ap- 
pears here, united with homely simplicity, an unfathomable'pro- 
fundity; united with a youthful gladness, a great seriousness; 
and united with the most perfect sincerity of heart and tender- 
ness of feeling, a mighty zeal for holy things, and an invincible 
courage for the battle with the hostile world. Trust in God and 
love of man are here bound together in an inseparable unity; 
the highest good is at once a secure possession and an endless 
task. All utterance has the fragrance of the most delicate poetry ; 
it draws its figures from the simple occurrences in surrounding 
nature, which it thereby ennobles; nowhere is there extravagance 
or excess, such as at once attracts and repels us in oriental types; 
instead, an exalted height of pure humanity in the form of pro- 



170 CHRISTIANITY 

nounced individuality, affecting us with a marvellous sense of 
harmony. And this personality, by its tragic experiences, is at 
the same time a prototype of human destiny, whose impressive 
pathos must be felt even by the most hardened mind. 

So far as the image of Jesus remained a present reality — and 
it could never wholly vanish for his followers — Christianity pos- 
sessed a sure guardian spirit, protecting it from sinking into 
pettiness and the indolent routine of every day, from becoming 
crystallised and commonplace, and from falling into the ration- 
alism of dogma and the Pharisaism of outward piety; it pos- 
sessed a power of turning from all the complexity of historical 
development to the simplicity of the essentially human ; a power 
also of adhesion, as against all the separations into sects and 
parties which threatened Christianity even from the first. 
Thus, within Christianity, the movement of development has 
ever and again reverted to Jesus, and has always drawn from 
him something new. Thenceforth, Christianity became a per- 
petual ideal to itself. The "Imitation of Christ," often falsely 
understood as a blind imitation, was the w.atchword of all striv- 
ing after the purity of the original teaching, of every effort to 
Christianise Christianity; hence to trace its historical develop- 
ment means to reveal the inner history of Christianity. 

This interpretation of Jesus retains its full force also for us 
moderns, who feel ourselves separated in many ways from his 
world of thought. The separation, in truth, extends only to a 
certain point, beyond which it tends instead to effect a reunion. 
But it ought to be perfectly clear that Jesus represents a definite 
and distinctive profession of faith concerning final questions 
and spiritual goods, that consequently the acceptance of him 
requires certain fundamental convictions, and that, as in the 
case of every creative mind, so above all in his, men are divided, 
and will be through all time. 

The immediate expectation of the kingdom of God made 
Jesus indifferent to all questions of mere civilisation and of the 
social order; hence on these matters neither sanction nor coun- 
sel can be expected from him. This separates him definitely from 



THE FOUNDATION 171 

those to whom the development of civilisation is the chief sub- 
stance and the sole aim of human existence; it tends only the 
more to attract to him those who perceive the inadequacy of all 
mere civilisation, and who see in the secure establishing of a 
new world upon the fundamental relation of man to the Infinite 
and Eternal the only possible salvation of the soul. 

More important, because more pertinent to the proper sphere 
of religion, is another consideration. Modern research has 
shown, incontrovertibly, the close connection of all Jesus's doc- 
trines with his belief in the speedy regeneration of the world, 
in the immediate coming of the kingdom of God; even the 
ethics, with its gentleness, peaceableness and joyfulness, derives 
its true significance from the expectation of the speedy coming 
of glory; apart from this, it may easily appear sentimental and 
overstrained. But the above belief has been shown by the 
course of history to be erroneous; what Jesus looked upon as 
something to be swiftly and once for all decided, has become an 
endlessly renewed question and problem. Not easily, and not 
without momentous transformation, has Christianity adjusted 
itself to the change. Has it not thereby also receded from Jesus, 
even placed itself in opposition to him? The change is unmis- 
takable, and a rejection of Christianity unavoidable for any one 
who sees in the world of our immediate existence the only reality, 
the final unfolding of the spiritual life. Whoever, on the other 
hand, looks upon this world only as a special form of being; 
whoever is unable to see the possibility of spiritual self-preser- 
vation, or any meaning and reason in all the untold trouble and 
labour of life, apart from the living presence of a new world of 
independent and triumphant spirituality, will joyfully and grate- 
fully acknowledge the fact that Jesus gave powerful and irre- 
sistible expression to the nearness and presence of such a world. 
Not only by his teachings, but still more by his life and suffering, 
he created a breach with the immediate world; he deprived it 
and all its goods of value ; he compelled men to look beyond it, 
and implanted in them an imperishable longing for a new 
world. The form, which we now recognise as transitory, was 



172 CHRISTIANITY 

then an indispensable means of inducing his age to acknowl- 
edge the new kingdom, and put forth its strength in support of 
it. Let us not be robbed of the eternal substance, because of 
the temporal wrapping. So, even on this point, we should 
realise that we are far less separated from than at one with 
him, i. e., we who recognise the great contrast, and at the same 
time seek to rise above it. 

Accordingly, even the very necessary efforts for a renewal of 
Christianity, for a more active and more universal Christianity, 
such as are being made to-day with ever increasing effect, do 
not need to break with Jesus; rather, even they place them- 
selves in the service of the truth revealed by him, and with full 
conviction appropriate the saying of Peter: "Lord, to whom 
shall we go ? thou hast the words of eternal life." 

n 

B. EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

Before we turn to consider the history of the Christian views 
of life, we must glance briefly at the difficulties which the con- 
cept of history encounters in this sphere. Religion and history 
are in their nature contradictory. For, just as religion must pro- 
claim its truth to be divine, so it must treat this truth as immut- 
able; and just as it reveals a new world, so it must produce in- 
difference toward the old. Christianity accentuated this oppo- 
sition in a peculiar degree. Neither Jesus himself, nor his disci- 
ples, nor the early Christians, believed that they stood at the 
beginning of a long development; rather, they looked for the 
end of the world, for the coming of eternal glory, in the imme- 
diate future. It took centuries before the hope of a speedy re- 
turn of the Messiah faded ; it was, in fact, the upbuilding of the 
Church into complete independence and into a world-dominat- 
ing power which eventually forced that idea into the back- 
ground, since the Church then asserted that the kingdom of 
God was actually present. The Church herself, however, as the 
bearer of an immutable truth, has never conceded that there 
was any inner development in essentials. It is also significant 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 173 

that Luther, so soon as the traditional conception of the Church 
was shattered, at once fell under the power of the idea of a 
speedy end of the world ; this fact alone makes his later activity 
in particular intelligible. 

Nevertheless, Christianity has a history. It has one, in the 
first place, for the reason that it belonged to very different 
epochs, and the characteristics of these epochs mingled in its 
formation. For, little as religion is to be regarded merely as an 
element of civilisation, it cannot escape the influence of the life 
surrounding it. The age in which Christianity received its pro- 
visional founding, the age of the decline of antiquity, is in fact far 
too exceptional to form the normal type of all ages, and to sway 
the whole future of humanity; it was necessary for Christianity 
to transcend the age of its birth, and it did so; but therewith 
religion too was drawn into the movement of history. 

So far, however, the movement might appear only as contin- 
gent and enforced. Yet, with all its initial indifference toward 
the world, Christianity, as a permanent power in human life, 
has an inner need both of drawing the world to itself, and of 
further realising itself in the world. It must not remain an 
affair of mere individuals. With such a limitation, it would not 
so much as satisfy the individual, since even in him will be 
found an element of world-nature; rather, it must build up 
a connected whole of life, a Christian world. But, to that end, 
it must enter into a positive relation with the life of civilisation, 
although indirectly rather than directly, by means of the trans- 
formation of the whole man. Whoever ridicules the idea of a 
Christian civilisation, of Christian sciences, etc., only shows 
that he thinks meanly, not only of religion, but also of science 
and of civilisation. Such a reciprocal relation, however, such 
give and take, necessarily involves the entrance of Christianity 
into the movements of general life, and consequently its possess- 
ing a history. 

This history falls, however, into two main divisions, an early 
and a modern Christianity; the former characterised by the 
relation to antiquity, the latter by the relation to the modern 



174 CHRISTIANITY 

world. The connection with antiquity still powerfully affects 
contemporary forms of Christianity, and occasions a great many 
serious difficulties. But this fact ought not to make us unjust 
toward the earlier phase of Christianity. For the time, this 
phase was necessary, if indeed Christianity was to rise from a 
mere sect to a spiritual world-power, and leave its impress upon 
the general state of affairs. For it could not attach itself to any 
other civilisation than that which then ruled the world, and 
which, in the universal belief of men, represented the final result 
of human effort. Furthermore, the fruitfulness of the union of 
the two worlds is incontestable. True, antiquity has often ex- 
ceeded the position assigned to it by the Christian view; par- 
ticularly in the matter of concepts and doctrines, it often seems 
as though Christianity had been ingrafted upon antiquity rather 
than antiquity upon Christianity. But Christianity was, and 
remained, the moving, progressive force; in spite of the deluge 
of classical and late Greek systems of thought which swept over 
it, it never gave up the battle for self-preservation and self-de- 
velopment. And if the total result does not usually rise above 
the plane of a more or less skilful combination, it always presents 
important problems, and in one instance — that of Augustine — it 
reaches a height which places it on a level with the great achieve- 
ments of all ages, and also gives it a worth which persists through- 
out all changing conditions. Since Augustine thus represents 
the highest point attained by the early Christian views of life, 
and accordingly forms the chief subject of our present consid- 
eration, he may also be taken as determining the sub-divisions 
of the period : all that was accomplished before him may be re- 
garded as a preparation, all subsequent achievement as a further 
development of his thought. 

I. THE PRE-AUGUSTINIAN PERIOD 

The account of the Christian views of life before Augustine 
presents peculiar difficulties. Since no single achievement rises 
to classical proportions, we must content ourselves with a gen- 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 175 

eral survey. But there are not only many differences among in- 
dividuals, and the permanent contrast between the Greek and 
Roman mind ; there is also a gradual change in the character of 
the whole. For, with the more rapid growth of Christianity 
which began at the close of the second century and further in- 
creased after the middle of the third century, organisation took 
precedence of the individual, and outward performance prece- 
dence of the inner spirit, while the magical gained ever-increas- 
ing prominence. We hope to do justice to these difficulties by 
presenting glimpses of the whole from different points of view, 
and by noting in passing the individual deviations. 

(a) A Sketch 0} the First Centuries 

The utterances of the early centuries respecting human life 
and destiny are more important as signs of a new life than as 
theoretical achievements. In an age when Christian communi- 
ties had to struggle hard both outwardly and inwardly, when 
the expectation of an ecstatic bliss caused men to live more in 
faith and hope than in the sensible present, when, finally, the 
main body of believers consisted of the poor and the ignorant, 
there was little room, and small incentive, for a connected treat- 
ment and a theoretical discussion of convictions about life. It 
was less a personal need than the necessity of defence that called 
forth expositions of doctrine; and inasmuch as these were de- 
signed for the outside public, it was the single points of contact 
and of difference rather than the whole in and for itself which 
obtained consideration. Moreover, in order to influence unbe- 
lievers, it was necessary to speak from their standpoint, and to 
make allowances for their prejudices. Hence the documents of 
the period are mainly exoteric in character, and much that they 
contain is rationalistic and utilitarian. What at that time filled 
the hearts of men is revealed much more clearly by early Chris- 
tian art, and a visit to the Catacombs transports one more di- 
rectly ' into the real life of the age than all the philosophical 
works taken together. In one respect, however, the latter pos- 



i 7 6 CHRISTIANITY 

sess a value of their own; they permit us to see how far what 
was new and characteristic had come to distinct consciousness, 
and how much capacity there was to meet unbelievers with the 
grounds for the new faith. The various expositions, however, 
gain consistency only through reference to the life behind them. 

The views of life, also, show that morality was the bone and 
marrow of early Christianity: strictness in morals and inner 
purity were the primary requirement. The resemblance to the 
Stoics and Cynics of the time is obvious; but there are also im- 
portant differences. Side by side with the subjectivity of man, 
the Stoics posit what is essentially a logical and physical order of 
things; but such an order cannot give the individual universal 
spiritual relations, and so provide a support for his efforts. 
For the Christian teachers, on the other hand, God, the perfect 
moral spirit, is present throughout the world; for them, the 
good is the ruling power, even beyond the human sphere. 

But this faith is accompanied by the conviction that imme- 
diate experience nowise harmonises with it, that, on the con- 
trary, experience yields much suffering and is full of unreason. 
To turn these to good requires the help of God, for man's power 
is insufficient; hence a religious faith is here closely intertwined 
with moral conviction. However, morals are rather strength- 
ened and supported by it than spiritualised and deepened; in- 
ward religious feeling, longing for a life inspired by infinite per- 
fection, very rarely finds expression; religion appears rather as 
a means of human happiness than as an end in itself. Although 
a profounder sort of religion may have been active deep down 
in the soul, it failed to show itself in theoretical discussions. 

A further contrast with ancient philosophy appears in the fact 
that attention is directed less to individuals than to the meliora- 
tion of the whole of humanity. Thus many new problems are 
raised, and the style of exposition is changed. The theoretical 
view gives place to what lives in the common consciousness; 
the immediate impression, the simple human feeling, is devel- 
oped with more freedom and expressed more openly ; the whole 
gains in warmth and lucidity. But popularising beliefs not only 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 177 

endangers the perfection of form and the precise determination 
of concepts ; often the mind is also carried away by the anthro- 
pomorphism of the popular view, and the heightened mood is not 
sufficiently held in check by an objective consideration of things. 

Hence, a sketch of the early Christian thinkers should not 
take theoretical knowledge as the foundation, as was done in 
the case of antiquity; rather, it is the role of faith, i. e., here, the 
comprehension and acceptance of the divine message, to trans- 
mit the truths on which the salvation of man depends. A strong 
inclination develops to depreciate the faculty of knowledge in 
favour of faith ; it is made to appear as a fault of pride to attempt 
to penetrate the last secrets and to comprehend the contents of 
faith. "About God we may learn only from God" (Athenag- 
oras). The Greeks, in whom the old delight in knowledge 
was ineffaceable, were in this respect in general more moderate; 
with the Latins, the belittling of knowledge was often exagger- 
ated to the point of positive distrust of all man's mental facul- 
ties. In two important respects, faith appeared to possess an 
advantage, viz., certainty and universal intelligibility. The 
philosophers had to seek the truth, while the Christians already 
possessed it; faith all could share, while theoretical knowledge 
was the privilege of the few., since the multitude lack the leisure 
necessary for investigation. "Every Christian workman knows 
God, and manifests Him, and signifies by his deed all that God 
requires of him, while Plato declares that the Architect of the 
Universe is not easy to find, and, when found, is difficult to im- 
part to all" (Tertullian). 

The focus of early Christian faith is the idea of God. On 
this point important deviations develop, deviations not only 
from the popular faith but also from the philosophical views of 
the ancients. Now for the first time there is a strict monothe- 
ism, which accepts the one invisible God, but no demi-gods; 
now for the first time polytheism disappears, although it must 
be admitted that it later crept in again in a modified form in the 
hagiolatry of Christianity itself. Now all reality is recognized 
as immediately constituted by the infinite Spirit; nature, in con- 



178 CHRISTIANITY 

sequence, loses the old pantheistic deification. To the senti- 
ment of antiquity this loss necessarily appeared intolerable; the 
new world offered in its stead seemed cold and desolate; it was 
no paradox when their opponents reproached the Christians 
with atheism. The ancient conceptions of deity were, in fact, 
destroyed by the new faith; but the new idea of God, with its 
imageless reverence and its paucity of names, lacked the tangi- 
bility and the individuality upon which the old way of thinking 
rested. On their part, the Christians not only appealed to the 
inner presence of the Divine Being, but believed that there flowed 
thence into nature also new life. Invisible angels, so they 
thought, hold undisputed sway throughout the whole of nature; 
all creatures pray; and in innumerable instances, such, e. g., as 
the flight of birds, devout observation may detect the sign of the 
Cross. Just as such divine life does not spring from the force 
of mere nature, but is transfused into things, so nature every- 
where points beyond itself to a higher order. 

By the surrender of all relationship with conceptions of na- 
ture, the idea of God approached nearer to man, the free moral 
being. Although the expression does not occur, we could speak 
here, with more justice than in the case of the Greeks, of the 
personality of God. But the merely human is not sufficiently 
eliminated, unpurified human emotions being often transferred 
to the Supreme Being. In fact, much commotion was occa- 
sioned among the Fathers by the question whether it would do 
to speak of the anger of God, and thus to ascribe an emotion to 
the Supreme Being. To do so would be in direct contradiction 
with the doctrines of the ancient philosophers; but the fear of 
the anger of God was the strongest motive of conduct in the 
Christian communities — a fact which is attested even by the 
thinkers who regard that passion as incompatible with pure 
conceptions of God. Still, to nearly all thinkers emotion seemed 
indispensable; without the anger of God there can be no fear 
of God, and without this no stability in civil society. 

As the work of an omnipotent God, the world cannot be 
other than good. Hence the order and beauty of nature are ex- 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 179 

tolled — not seldom in contrast with the confusion and suffering 
of human life — and held up to unbelievers as a striking proof of 
the existence of God; to every unprejudiced mind the glorious 
works of nature must clearly proclaim the invisible Overseer. 
The world, however, has a fixed boundary not only in space, as 
was believed even in antiquity, but also in time, as was now 
taught in opposition to the ancient philosophy of history. 
There is no endless series of cycles; but, just as it has a begin- 
ning, so the world has an end, in time; whatever takes place in 
it, above all, the great conflict of God with evil, happens once 
and never again, although the consequences extend through all 
eternity. The importance of human conduct is emphasised to 
the utmost by this new philosophy of history; and the old way 
of thinking is charged with implying the uselessness of all striv- 
ing, since, according to it, whatever is achieved is again lost, and 
every undertaking must begin anew. The duration of the world 
is not only fixed, but is also short; six thousand years are of ten 
assigned as its limit, with the added explanation that while the 
world was created in six days, in the sight of God a day is as a 
thousand years. Even now the end of the world, and, with it, 
the Last Judgment, seem near. This belief arose in the first 
instance from the confident expectation of a speedy return of 
the Messiah; it still persisted later, however, because the fading 
of the Messianic hope was counterbalanced by the growing im- 
pression of the decline of civilisation, the aging of humanity. 
Even as late as the beginning of the fourth century, Lactantius 
believed that the world would not endure beyond a few centu- 
ries. Hence no vista of an extended history opened before the 
Christianity of this age. So much the more important became 
the present, and so much the more imperative the decisions of 
the present. 

No less did a new attitude of man toward the world operate 
as an incitement to activity. In spite of all the teachings of the 
Stoics respecting the supremacy of man, antiquity persisted on 
the whole in subordinating him to the world. But now that his 
moral nature conferred upon man a supreme worth, he became 



180 CHRISTIANITY 

the centre and purpose of the universe: all is for his benefit; 
even the sun, moon, and stars make obeisance to him. But 
his responsibility increases with his importance; his conduct 
determines the destiny of the world; his Fall brought evil 
into the world, and caused all the suffering that the present 
state of things shows. For the origin of evil lies in the freedom 
of man, not in the dark forces of nature. Thus the ancient doc- 
trine of the obstructing and degrading power of matter also dis- 
appears ; for nothing is worthless which has been created by the 
divine omnipotence. Likewise, man dare not now despise his 
body as something foreign and common ; nor may he heap upon 
his sensuous nature all the responsibility for evil; for the body, 
too, belongs to our being, and there is no complete immortality 
without the resurrection of the body. This doctrine was very 
repugnant to the Greeks; and it was only after compromises 
and evasive interpretations that their greatest teachers sub- 
scribed to the faith of the Church. 

But the higher we exalt the position of man, the keener be- 
comes the sense of his present misery. For the present state of 
the world must be regarded as altogether unsatisfactory. Innu- 
merable dangers and afflictions beset us from without and from 
within : there the irrationality of things, here our own passions. 
In particular, as is natural at a time of serious conflict, thought 
dwells upon the helplessness of the good as compared with the 
hostile forces. Moreover, there is no hope that the state of 
things will improve with the lapse of time, or that through an 
order inherent in things the history of the world will come to be 
its own Judgment. Amid natural conditions the good ever re- 
mains powerless, the truth must always suffer. Hence the hope 
of the speedy coming of a new world alone sustains the spirit 
and makes work joyful; all desire is focussed upon that super- 
natural future; and at service a frequent form of prayer is, 
"May grace come, and the present world pass away!" 

The opening up of this prospect is the main thing in the 
Christian Evangel. However, the nature of Christianity is little 
discussed, and such discussion as there is fails to bring out the 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 181 

deeper feeling of the Christian community. The Apologists of 
the second century looked upon Christianity as a God-given 
doctrine of reason, supplementing such reason as exists in man 
and manifests itself in history. Especially characteristic of this 
doctrine are an exclusive reverence for the one invisible God, and 
an exaltation solely of morality — a morality wholly inward and 
based upon free conviction, as constituting the true worship of 
God. Even at a later time the greatness of Christianity was 
found less in the revelation of a new content, in a spiritual ele- 
vation of mankind, than in a more universal and more powerful 
realisation of the end and aim of all men. Now for the first 
time Christianity appeals to the whole man, and instead of re- 
maining mere skill in words and doctrines becomes a thing mani- 
fest in deeds. The loftier estimate of the personality of Jesus 
and the more devout reverence for him seldom find expression in 
the writings of the time, although contemporary art gives unmis- 
takable evidence of their presence in the community. Great 
importance is universally attributed to Jesus's death, but defi- 
nite explanation and justification of it are wanting. Writers 
dwell for the most part upon the belief that Jesus had destroyed 
the power of evil spirits, and had begun a regeneration of man- 
kind. Yet, profounder speculations also appear. Thus, Ire- 
nseus believed that in Christ the eternal became human, that 
what was mortal was absorbed by the immortal, and that there- 
by we, too, become sons of God. Only in this manner could the 
mutable be raised to the immutable. This process of reasoning 
was permanently adopted by the Greek Church. 

How men thought regarding the essence of Christianity ap- 
pears also from the manner of its defence. On this point a shift- 
ing from particular to universal took place with the lapse of cen- 
turies. At first, the strongest evidence of truth was found in the 
fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies; what holy men fore- 
told before it occurred must be from God. Then the miracles 
of healing performed in the name of Jesus were pointed to, par- 
ticularly the driving out of devils, of which men believed that 
they had daily evidence. Even the broadest and freest mind 



1 82 CHRISTIANITY 

before Augustine, even Origen, held these two proofs in high 
esteem. But as Christianity gained in strength, its own power 
and effects became the chief evidence. The moral condition of 
the Christian communities, it was pointed out, is incomparably 
better than that of surrounding heathendom; only divine om- 
nipotence could confer on Christianity the power to purify men 
and make them steadfast in the face of cruel persecutions; only 
divine help could enable it to grow in spite of untold misfortunes. 
"For the blood of Christ is a seed" (Tertullian) ; "The more it 
is repressed, the more the religion of God grows" (Lactantius). 
Likewise the spread of Christianity over all peoples serves as an 
evidence of its truth ; such an astonishing advance in the face of 
the hostile and more powerful world could not have taken place 
without divine assistance. Moreover, that the Roman Empire, 
speaking roughly, began simultaneously with Christianity and 
inaugurated an era of peace, was believed to have favoured the 
spread of Christianity, and to have been brought about by the 
appearance of the peace-making Saviour. Furthermore, the 
Apologists did not hesitate to make the most of the utility of re- 
ligion for civil life and social order: only the fear of the con- 
demnation and punishments of God compels the multitude to 
obey the laws. And the ethical elevation of Christianity nat- 
urally was not overlooked. It devotes all its power to the im- 
provement of men: in the opinion of Origen the miracles of 
Jesus are raised far above those of all heathen magicians by the 
fact that they are not conjurer's tricks, but always have a moral 
aim. The intrinsic advantage of Christian morality consists not 
so much in new doctrines as in the communication of a power 
to perform tasks which otherwise would exceed the capacities of 
men. The gentleness, peaceableness, fortitude, and patience of 
the Christian are lauded. Particularly is it the new attitude 
toward suffering which everywhere comes to the fore. "We 
are distinguished from those that know not God by the fact that 
in misfortune they complain and grumble, while we are not di- 
verted by evils and pain from the truth of virtue and faith, but 
are made thereby only the stronger" (Cyprian). Likewise, the 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 183 

more intimate relation to one' s fellow-men is often extolled . ' ' Who- 
ever bears his neighbour's burden, whoever essays to help the less 
capable in that wherein he himself is superior, whoever by com- 
municating the gifts of God to them that have need becomes a 
god to the recipients, that one is an imitator of God" (Epistle to 
Diognetus). By Eusebius {c. 270-340), the moral effects of 
Christianity are compressed into a single view: "It gives to all 
a share in divine truth; it teaches how to bear with a noble 
mind the malice of the enemy, and not to ward off evil by evil 
means; it elevates above passion and anger and all fierce de- 
sires; in particular, it impels us to share our own possessions 
with the poor and needy, to greet every man as kin, and to rec- 
ognise even in the stranger — according to an inner law annulling 
the external rule — a neighbour and a brother." 

Because, then, of its gentleness, patience, and humanity, 
Christianity feels itself superior to its opponents. Yet the pow- 
erful longing for happiness and the expectation of a new world 
do not permit this tenderness to degenerate into effeminacy, nor 
the self-denial of believers into indolent resignation. The early 
Christian suffers and denies himself, but he does so in the se- 
cure hope of a higher happiness; he thinks not less but more 
of man and his aims. Lactantius writes his chief work with the 
definite intention "of inducing men not to depreciate them- 
selves, as certain philosophers do, and regard themselves as pow- 
erless and useless and worthless and as born altogether in vain : 
an opinion which drives the majority to vice." 

It is further a powerful incitement to effort, that man must 
of his own initiative make the decision for or against God. For, 
although the early Christian was closely identified with an his- 
torical tradition and a social environment, the great choice on 
which his destiny hung was none the less his own act. The 
complete freedom of the will was asserted with more confidence, 
barring a possible exception, than ever before or since; its denial 
appeared to destroy all moral responsibility, indeed, all moral 
worth: "There would be nothing worthy of praise, if man had 
not the capacity to turn in either direction" (Justin). To accen- 



184 CHRISTIANITY 

tuate responsibility to the utmost was indeed a life-and-death 
matter with early Christianity. Hence, freedom was pro- 
claimed, not as a doctrine advanced by individual thinkers, but 
as the common conviction of the Christian Church ; and it was 
viewed as extending beyond conduct to matters of belief; even 
faith was thought to depend upon the free decision of man; to 
accept false doctrines concerning God appeared to imply moral 
guilt. No obligation was felt to give a psychological explana- 
tion of freedom; likewise, the relation of man's freedom to 
God's omnipotence as yet caused no anxiety. For reality is 
here viewed from the human and not from the divine stand-point. 
From convictions such as these there results a life full of 
power, emotion, and spiritual activity. The one supreme aim is 
to remain true to God through the dedication of all one's facul- 
ties to Him. Man is confronted with a momentous alternative: 
Either success and enjoyment in life, with eternal ruin; or bliss 
beyond, with continual conflict and suffering here. In making 
such a choice prudence, if nothing more, would give the prefer- 
ence to boundless eternity instead of to the short span of time. 
For the present, evil rules and exercises grievous oppression; 
even if the enemy be inwardly condemned, outwardly he re- 
mains triumphant and can inflict cruel wrongs. Hence, the 
mind must elevate itself above the sensuous present by the 
power of faith, and in joyful hope lay hold of the invisible better 
world. With regard to immediate surroundings, it is chiefly 
courage that is needed, courage in the sense of fortitude. Thus 
patience is often extolled as the crowning virtue. In this re- 
spect, the early Christian was in part near to the Stoic, in part 
far removed from him and antagonistic. Even the Christian 
should be a hero and bid defiance to all the world. Especially 
the occidental Christians were fond of calling themselves "sol- 
diers of God"; and of the thinkers Cyprian in particular de- 
lighted in metaphors drawn from military affairs and the lives 
of soldiers. On the other hand, the Christian thinkers are di- 
rectly opposed to the Stoics in the treatment of the feelings and 
emotions. How could Christianity have summoned men to a 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 185 

complete revolution in their lives, and at the same time have 
repressed all emotion and commended the "apathy" of the 
Stoics ! The new life is not born until man has been profoundly 
stirred by penitence and contrition; and in its hovering between 
the visible and invisible worlds, it is ceaselessly swayed this way 
and that by fear and hope. Hence, the aim is not to suppress or 
even to moderate the emotions, but to guide them in their full 
strength in the right direction: let the fear of God liberate 
from all other fear. "Fear is neither to be uprooted, as the 
Stoics demand, nor to be tempered, as the Peripatetics say; 
rather it is to be directed in the right way, and special care 
is to be taken that only that form of fear remains which, as 
the true one, allows nothing else to become an object of fear" 
(Lactantius). 

The absorption of the whole man in the one aim leaves him 
no opportunity to take part in the work of civilisation; con- 
cerned, as he is, with salvation and future blessedness, such 
work could attract him little, and certainly the less in propor- 
tion as the ancient world fell into a rapid decline after the fail- 
ure of the attempts at restoration in the second century. Thus, 
early Christianity manifests no impulse to improve general 
conditions, or to engage in the investigation of the natural 
world; in both, aloofness, if not open disapproval, is shown, 
according to the differences among individuals and to the con- 
trast of Greek and Latin types of mind. Art, also, which was 
by no means of slight importance to the spiritual life of the 
early Christians, nowhere finds recognition among the thinkers. 
In this disregard of art there is also operative a reaction against 
the antique delight in form, which appeared to the early Chris- 
tians to be an over-valuation of the unmeaning exterior after 
the fading and gradual disappearance of its living content. In- 
asmuch as form contributed nothing toward gratifying their 
longing for happiness, it was condemned as being indifferent, 
worthless, even seductive; while all effort was directed toward 
the content, the disposition, the moral constitution. Even a 
Clement could say, "The beauty of every creature resides in its 



186 CHRISTIANITY 

excellence." The Latins, however, carried the contempt for 
form to the point of indifference to grammatical accuracy. 
"What harm is done," asks Arnobius, "if an error in case and 
number, in preposition, particle, or conjunction, is made?" 
Such views are close to a barbaric disdain for all culture, and 
already breathe the mediaeval spirit. But they are intelligible 
in connection with their age, and they indicate a turning-point 
in human endeavour whose consequences endured for more 
than a thousand years. It was the Renaissance which first 
brought about a change, and restored form again to honour. 

But, although the early Christian thinkers show their strength 
in the exclusive exaltation of the state of the soul, even here the 
picture is not without its shadows. The vehemence of their 
clamouring for happiness places them far behind the ancient 
Greek thinkers in the matter of the motives of conduct. While 
the latter with one accord attribute an intrinsic beauty to good- 
ness, and elevate the joy felt in this beauty into the chief im- 
pulse of worthy conduct, the majority of the Church Fathers, 
particularly the Latin Fathers, insist strenuously upon an ample 
reward of virtue. Virtue is regarded as a mere means to bles- 
sedness, a blessedness painted with a glowing fancy, and ex- 
pected with perfect confidence in the Beyond. In this contem- 
plation of future ecstasy, the actual moral life appears to be- 
come indifferent, at least there is no evidence of joy in it. In 
fact, the early Christians do not shrink from calling it folly for 
any one to suffer the pains which the life of virtue in this world 
involves, viz., labour and privation, grief and shame, without 
a sure promise of a great reward, or, conversely, for any one to 
shun evil without the expectation of severe punishment. "If 
there were no immortality, it would be wise to do evil, foolish to 
do good" (Lactantius). The sharp contrast with their sur- 
roundings, and the tremendous tension of the general state of 
things, may explain, and to some extent excuse, such crass 
utterances; also, it should be noted that the Christian Fathers, 
with their popular attitude, reflect the feeling of the multitude, 
and seek to work upon it, while the ancient thinkers addressed 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 187 

themselves chiefly to the few eminent individuals. None the 
less, it remains true that in the purity of the moral motive the 
majority of the Church Fathers fall far behind the philosophers 
of Greece. 

The greatness of early Christian thought lies in the develop- 
ment of an independent sphere of life, in the upbuilding of an 
all-inclusive organisation. Into this were gathered what there 
was of intimacy of feeling and of capacity for conduct; here 
arose, amid all the asceticism, a new world, a realm of joyful 
and fruitful activity. It was in itself something great that here, 
despite all the disruption and friction of the times, the firm foot- 
hold for the individual, which had so long been vainly sought, 
was found ; that here a community of thought and feeling arose, 
which provided every one with a secure intellectual existence 
and with important aims. Here each felt the closest ties with 
others; those who believed in Christ formed one soul and one 
community. Here was realised with greater fulness and truth 
that ancient simile which likened society to an organism; the 
believers lived with one another and for one another like the 
members of one body; what each experienced immediately 
affected the others also. As a consequence of the fact that the 
Christian communities were composed chiefly of the poor, and 
also in consequence of the constant danger, if not actual perse- 
cution, to which they were exposed, the inevitable battle with 
privation and suffering became the principal concern of life. 
In addition to the private charities, there was formed an organ- 
isation of the Church for works of benevolence which spread 
itself over the several communities. The widows and the or- 
phans, the sick and the infirm, the poor and the incapable, the 
imprisoned and the persecuted, ought to be helped and were 
helped. Yet, with all the strain put upon men's powers, the 
movement did not fall into extravagance; all the concentra- 
tion of thought upon the future did not prevent an honest 
appreciation of labour, an earnest devotion to it, and a thought- 
ful and clear-headed employment of the existing means. In 
particular, duty was never enforced by outward compulsion; 



188 CHRISTIANITY 

help was never exacted in the form of a demand, but awaited as 
a freely offered service. That in practice many difficulties arose 
is shown by the repeated complaints of the Church Fathers at 
the lukewarmness and the scantiness of alms; but this fact was 
not permitted to affect the general view respecting free-will 
offerings. Although outwardly divided, property was to be 
regarded as essentially held in common; its possessor should 
consider himself as its steward, never as its proprietor. Thus, 
each should use only what is necessary for life, and offer the 
remainder to the brethren. For it is unjust that one person 
should revel in abundance while many are in want. This in 
itself makes luxury in all its forms objectionable. Similarly, 
any attempt at the selfish accumulation of material goods, in 
particular the exploiting of commercial advantages, is pro- 
hibited. In order to counteract desires of this sort, Lac- 
tantius transplanted to Christian soil the Aristotelian inter- 
diction of every form of interest charges, a prohibition 
which thereafter became a permanent part of the ecclesiastical 
rule of life. 

Coupled with the struggle against poverty was that against 
immorality. The Christians were surrounded by a polished and 
luxurious civilisation; dazzling and exciting pleasures allured 
and enticed; the lax conscience of the age knew how to dis- 
pose of moral scruples in a facile manner. The conflict was with 
a powerful, almost irresistible, current; no wonder that, at least 
in theory, every compromise was rejected, and that their oppo- 
sition took the harshest form. All mere pleasure was forbidden, 
all ornaments prohibited : one could easily become lax through 
their use, and thus fall under the power of external things. 
These sentiments crystallised into fixed rules and regulations; 
many pagan amusements, e. g., the gladiatorial combats, were 
condemned on principle; and, in general, abstention and cau- 
tion were recommended. Most determined of all was the 
attack upon sexual impurity, a matter upon which heathen sen- 
timent was very lax. A new spirit also showed itself in the fact 
that the same strictness in morals was demanded of the men as 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 189 

of the women; and further, in the greatly increased difficulty of 
divorce, which contemporary Judaism as well as heathenism 
made decidedly easy. 

If we consider that the early Christians believed that all these 
things were achieved in God's service, and also that they were 
themselves animated by a lively expectation of a new world, we 
cannot wonder that there developed within the Christian Church 
a lofty self-consciousness, and that all inner relationship with 
heathenism was decisively broken off. They regarded themselves 
as a world-people, who would spread themselves over the face 
of the whole earth; as the militant people of God: their com- 
monwealth appeared to have been directly inaugurated by God, 
and to surpass every human alliance. This commonwealth, as 
is explained by Origen, alone possessed the character of perma- 
nence. For here ruled the natural law given of God, while civil 
laws originate with men, and by men are arbitrarily changed. 
This Christian commonwealth alone has the character of uni- 
versality; as the divine fatherland, it seeks to include and to 
rescue all men, while political states are necessarily divided 
according to peoples. Herewith the Christian commonwealth 
appears as the heart of the total life of humanity, as the original 
people, which had existed since the beginning of history, and 
from whom was borrowed everything of truth to be found 
among other peoples. 

Hence, the Christian could be in no doubt as to his decision 
in the conflict with the civil order which became inevitable at 
the time of the worship of the deified emperors : in danger and 
in extremity, in ignominy and in death, God must protect the 
faithful. The unbelievers naturally rejected this aloofness 
(a/jugta) as politically and morally inadmissible; and they 
saw to it that, in addition to compulsory measures, philosophi- 
cal arguments also were not wanting. But these did not pro- 
duce the desired impression; the Christians, on their part, per- 
sisted in identifying the contrast between the religious and civil 
communities with that between the divine and human orders. 
Even at that time all those claims were raised on behalf of the 



i 9 o CHRISTIANITY 

Church which have endured throughout the Middle Ages and 
down to the present time. 

Thus there were not wanting the seeds of serious complications, 
which later gave Christianity trouble enough. Moreover, let it be 
borne in mind that the thought of the time was dominated by a 
decided anthropomorphism; that there mingled with the moral 
aims not a little selfish clamouring for happiness; that not sel- 
dom passion and fanaticism broke forth with gruesome violence. 
Still other dark shadows will later occupy us. Particularly 
after the third century, the multitude were, on the whole, rather 
disciplined than moralised. But even the disciplining should 
not be undervalued; for an extended domain of life was thus 
won for nobler aims. A new beginning was made, fresh life 
awakened, the seeds of great developments sown. In particu- 
lar, the power, joyfulness, and truth of the movement as a whole 
must appeal to us, so long as the stern battle with an over-mas- 
tering environment prevented life from falling into idle routine 
and preserved it from all sham and hypocrisy. Thus, at the 
time of the decline of a venerable and opulent civilisation, and 
amid an upheaval of all the relations of life, Christianity offered 
a firm support and revealed a lofty ideal to humanity; and its 
adherents might suitably and with full justice describe them- 
selves as the soul of the world. 

(b) Early Christian Speculation 

(a) CLEMENT AND ORIGEN 

The attempts to convert Christianity into a speculative knowl- 
edge, first made in the Orient, also belong to a consideration of 
the problem of life. For knowledge in this case does not mean 
mere thinking about life, it means the innermost soul of life, the 
elevation of life to the plane of perfect truthfulness. In this 
sense, it draws to itself all the living warmth of the emotions, 
and, hand in hand with its own growth, it increases the inti- 
macy and delicacy of feeling. 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 191 

The beginning is made by two Alexandrians, Clement (after 
189 active as a teacher) and Origen (185-254). Both seek to 
press forward from faith to knowledge; but Clement does not 
go beyond the general outlines, and turns his thought princi- 
pally in the direction of morals, while Origen erects a great 
speculative system, the first upon Christian soil. 

Clement is a most zealous advocate of knowledge as opposed 
to faith. The problem is not very difficult, however, since for 
him faith means only a lower stage of knowledge, an acceptance 
of a doctrine on the ground of mere authority. It is under- 
standing, so he shows, that first makes knowledge the full prop- 
erty of man; only with understanding does thought penetrate 
beyond the metaphor to the thing, beyond the blind datum to 
the luminous reason. Genuine understanding is capable of so 
engrossing the man, that he does not so much possess knowledge 
and insight, as himself becomes knowledge and insight. It is 
with knowledge alone that we attain a pure, unselfish joy, and 
no longer need a reward. Whoever demands a reward for the 
labour, sells his conviction, and becomes a child; the true 
"Gnostic," on the contrary (Clement is fond of this expression, 
while Origen avoids it), has been ripened into manhood by the 
love of God, and wants nothing but the truth itself. If we had 
to choose between knowledge and eternal bliss, we should be 
forced to relinquish the latter. But the crown of all knowledge 
is the knowledge of God. In such knowledge man is lifted 
above time and space into immutable being, and wholly ab- 
sorbed in God, "deified" (deovfievos). Herewith all emotion 
is laid aside, the Stoic ideal of "apathy" realised. In view 
of the inwardness of such a life, the mind needs no special 
proofs; all tenets and ordinances of an external sort lie in a plane 
far beneath. The true Gnostic praises God at all times, not 
merely on certain days and at stated hours; his whole life is an 
act of worship. 

There was danger that this lofty attitude might separate the 
immediate followers from the congregations, and thus disrupt 
Christendom. But Clement fought against the danger with all 



i 9 2 CHRISTIANITY 

his power. There let knowledge rule, here faith; both aim at 
the same truth, and allegorical interpretation points out the 
way to bring the two forms into accord : there let the love of 
the good, here the fear of punishment, actuate men's conduct; 
for in both cases the same deeds are required, and the common 
work of the community unites both in a single aim. In fact, 
knowledge, which at first threatens to separate men, rather 
unites them through the active love which springs from it. For, 
just as the act of knowing is an unselfish surrender to the 
truth, so it also kindles an ardent impulse toward the manifest- 
ing of love. "Works follow knowledge as shadows follow a 
body." Love is to be manifested first toward Christ, by un- 
flinching witness even to the point of the willing surrender of life, 
the "most perfect work of love"; then by a ceaseless activity for 
the Christian community. That all worth here resides in the 
disposition, results in another, freer, and more joyful attitude 
toward the world and its goods; the true victory over the world 
means, not outward aloofness, but an inner triumph. To be 
saved, the rich man must renounce his wealth, not outwardly 
but inwardly; he does so by placing it all at the service of the 
community, and by not using for himself more than is required 
for the maintenance of life. In this spirit, marriage is not 
shunned, as a worldly entanglement, but its significance deep- 
ened; it is then heartily commended, "for the sake of the father- 
land, and in order to co-operate according to our powers in the 
perfecting of the world." Nowhere else in the early Church 
does the life of the family receive such loving treatment as is 
accorded to it by this thinker. "The most beautiful of all 
things is a domestic woman, who adorns herself and her hus- 
band with her own handiwork, so that all rejoice, the children 
in the mother, the husband in the wife, the wife in the husband, 
and all in God." 

This more friendly attitude toward life is accompanied by a 
higher estimate of the world and of history. The antago- 
nism between Christianity and its environment, which was so 
keenly felt by Clement, did not prevent his extolling the order 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 193 

fixed by God as the best and the most suitable. He looks 
upon life as a common school, and upon history as a pro- 
gressive education of mankind. As a part of this educa- 
tion, as a preparation {TrpoiraLheia) for Christianity, the 
culture of the ancients, particularly their philosophy, receives 
full recognition. In fact, the Christian doctrine is character- 
ised as a selection and fusion of what is true in the various 
systems. 

Surely such convictions do not express the average view of the 
Christian communities; Clement himself often enough men- 
tions the dread of philosophy exhibited by the multitude, to- 
gether with the opinion that it comes from the devil. But that 
amid all the commotion of the time such a free, inward convic- 
tion was at all possible, is a circumstance which should not be 
omitted from a survey of early Christianity. 

Origen was the first to work out a comprehensive system of 
Christian doctrine. Yet the inner core of the system is not Chris- 
tian but Platonic. The Platonic union of the true and the good, 
and its upward striving from the inconstant flux of time to an 
immutable being, from the obscure confusion of the world of 
sense to a pure spirituality, dominate the thought of Origen. 
As a strong outer covering we then have the Christian element, 
not only in the greater emphasis and the more personal form of 
the moral idea, but in the closer connection of eternity with 
time, and in the higher estimate of the historical process and of 
the human race as a whole. From the interaction of both lines 
of thought and ways of feeling there results a highly fruitful 
movement, a wide realm of thought, in fact, a characteristic, 
typical view of the world and of life. But a complete unification 
and a homogeneous development of the whole sphere of life is 
not achieved; despite his many brilliant qualities, Origen lacks 
the greatness of creative originality. 

The conception of God at once shows a fusion of various ten- 
dencies. Origen is above all animated by the determination to 
eradicate the anthropomorphism of his age, and to exalt the 



i 9 4 CHRISTIANITY 

conception of the Supreme Being to a sublime height far above 
everything human and temporal, and inaccessible even to our 
loftiest thoughts. Accordingly we have only negative utterances, 
which could not lead to any sort of community of life with the 
Deity. In the midst of negation, however, there appears in 
Origen a striving after affirmation. For when he rejects certain 
ideas with special emphasis, the opposite is virtually accepted. 
In distinction from the multiplicity of things, God constitutes 
a strict unity; in distinction from the finite intermingling of the 
sensuous and the spiritual, pure spirituality; in distinction from 
the flux and change of our world, immutable being. To these 
results of speculation there is added as a new feature Origen's 
treatment of the manifestation within the world of God's all- 
pervading love and goodness; it is this which first brings him 
into closer relation with the faith of the community. Out of His 
goodness God created the world, and because of His goodness 
He permits not the slightest thing to be lost. His love embraces 
all peoples and all ages, and nothing good takes place among 
men without Him, "the God over all" (o ein iracn Seos), as 
Origen prefers to call Him. The highest proof of this goodness 
is found in Christianity, which involves the entrance of the Divine 
into the world and the union of time and eternity. Here for 
the first time is raised to full distinctness and power that with 
which the world can never dispense. 

But, in order that the world may manifest the eternal essence 
and perfect goodness of God, it must be larger than the custom- 
ary Christian conception represents it to be. Although Origen 
rejects unlimited extension in space, using the characteristic 
Greek argument that without a limit it could not possess order 
and system, he is none the less more concerned with the world's 
extent than with its limit. In the case of time, however, dread of 
undue restriction forces him to break with the common concep- 
tion and approach closely to the old Greek view of history. Or- 
igen denies, as decisively as any of the ancient philosophers, that 
the world had a beginning in time. True, this present world 
had a beginning, just as it will have an end; but before it lay 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 195 

innumerable other worlds, and others will follow it. Our pres- 
ent existence is only a link in an endless chain; the world, in- 
cluding historical Christianity, only one world among many. 
To the Christian thinker, this succession of worlds appears, 
indeed, not as a mere rhythm of the course of nature, but as a 
work of divine creation; creation itself becomes a progressive, 
ever-renewed act, instead of an event occurring once for all. 
Likewise, the Stoic doctrine of the complete likeness in charac- 
ter of all the world-periods finds no acceptance; for it destroys 
the freedom of decision, something that forms a chief element 
in Origen's belief. Free decision, however, is sure to result vari- 
ously and give to the several worlds individual character. Hence 
our world, distinguished by the appearance of Christ, may very 
well assume a peculiar position. 

But the Greek and Christian elements here tend toward an ad- 
justment also as regards the content of the world. The Greek 
view looks at the world principally under the contrast of the 
spiritual and the material, the Christian view under that of 
moral good and evil; in the former, evil has its root in matter, 
in the latter, in voluntary guilt. Origen makes every effort to 
reserve a finer sort of matter for the good without in any way 
weakening his rejection of common matter. The essence of 
reality consists of the invisible world of ideas — a doctrine which, 
thenceforth, becomes a constituent element in Christian specu- 
lation; material being originates subsequent to this invisible 
world, and continually requires its constituting and animating 
power. But as the work of God, material being was at the outset 
far purer and finer than the coarse sensuousness which now sur- 
rounds us; its lower nature came as the result of the voluntary 
degradation of spirits which were unable to maintain the effort 
necessary to the preservation of goodness. Hence, the opposi- 
tion of Christian and Greek beliefs appears to be reconciled; 
the final decision rests with the moral act, but immediate feeling 
continues to be swayed by aversion to common matter, and thus 
the way is open for an ascetic ideal of life. But asceticism finds 
also within Christianity a theoretical justification; in contrast 



196 CHRISTIANITY 

with the view of Clement, a stricter, most abstemious conduct 
of life is sharply distinguished from that of the average; not 
only the disposition, even the kind of conduct, separates the 
Christian from the crowd. 

From such convictions there develops a characteristic view of 
the destiny and problems of human life. Men's souls, as a chief 
part of the divine creation, belong to the permanent state of the 
world, and accordingly must have lived before this present ex- 
istence; they are found here below in consequence of their own 
guilt; their goal is a return to the divine height. For this is the 
abode of degradation and temptation; the body with its weight 
draws the spirit downward to lower spheres and obstructs all 
pure joys. But the power of the mind, with its faculty of knowl- 
edge, victoriously opposes matter, and amid all the misery of 
immediate existence there persists the firm trust that in the end 
nothing can be lost of all that the eternal God has created and 
protected with His love. Thus the speculative and the ethical 
tendencies of Origen's thought unite to produce the belief in a 
complete restoration of all things, in a return to the divine home 
even of him who has gone farthest astray. While thus the course 
of the world returns quite to the point of beginning, and in the 
total movement nothing is either lost or won, the whole of his- 
tory may seem to be merely a temporal glimpse of eternity, and 
all the work of the world threatens to sink into a dreamy unreality. 

With this return to pure spirituality and complete eternity, 
knowledge, as the only means of passing from appearance to 
reality, from the temporal to the eternal, becomes the chief con- 
cern of life. Infinitely higher than the daily religious worship is 
the desire for the pure knowledge of God; in such knowledge 
everything temporal, everything sensuous and mutable, is tran- 
scended, and man is wholly absorbed inGod, transformed into God. 

Such an ideal gives to Christianity, which embodies it, a pe- 
culiar form. Above all, Christianity must mean something 
more than a single, although pre-eminent, point in history; it 
must encompass the whole of reality, and elevate it in nature 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 197 

and worth. Its essence is the complete presence of the immu- 
table in the mutable; it is the super-temporal activity of the 
Logos, which frees all its disciples from time and transports 
them to eternity. Thus Christianity for the first time reveals a 
complete knowledge of divine being, a deification of man. But 
a distinct transition from such a world-idea to historical Chris- 
tianity is wanting. None the less its treatment everywhere dis- 
plays an effort after universality, a broad and free intelligence. 
Christianity extends its activity over the whole of history; the 
advent of Christ forms the climax of a world-historical move- 
ment. That which had previously existed only in a dispersed 
and isolated way was thereby raised to dominating power. For 
from the very beginning God has taken the world under His 
protection, and at all times there have been just men and those 
pleasing to Him. But in Jesus began the complete union, the 
"interweaving" (avvvfyatveahai) , of divine and human; and 
by this fellowship -with the divine human nature becomes 
divine, not only in Jesus, but in all who accept and manifest the 
life revealed in him. The true follower ought not to remain 
merely a believer in Christ (%/3terT£az;o<?), but himself become 
a Christ. His own life and suffering can serve for the salvation 
of his brethren. Thus, even in the field of experience, Chris- 
tianity appears as a progressive work, ever beginning anew, and 
extending throughout the whole of history. 

As regards human things, Christianity manifests its peculiar 
greatness and universality chiefly in the sphere of morals. In 
Origen's opinion, it laid upon men no new commands; but it 
achieved a greater thing, in that it gave them the power to fulfil 
even the severest injunctions, penetrated to the innermost re- 
cesses of the moral nature, and filled their hearts with tenderness 
and charity. „ So, likewise, it is ethical greatness and ethical in- 
fluence which lift the personality of Jesus far above that of the 
heroes of antiquity. No other Church Father of the Orient has 
dealt so intimately, so lovingly, with this personality as Origen. 
He dwells upon the goodness and humanity of Jesus, his gen- 
tleness and sweetness; and these noble feelings, together with 



198 CHRISTIANITY 

a tranquillity of the whole being, can be communicated from 
him to us, and transform us into Sons of Peace. He dwells also 
upon Jesus's sufferings, and glorifies martyrdom accepted from 
pure love as the only adequate gratitude. 

Thus the transformation of Christianity into speculation did 
not involve in this instance a loss in warmth of feeling. More- 
over, we see Origen zealously concerned to preserve a close re- 
lationship with the Christian community both in the matter of 
faith and in that of life in general. As to doctrine, allegorical 
interpretation offered a convenient expedient, and Origen not 
only freely applied this method, but developed it in technical 
resource. But as to life and conduct, the estimate he placed upon 
morals identifies him closely with his environment, while his 
striving for an eternal and universal content in Christianity 
leads him to exalt the Christian community above the state. 

Accordingly we find that the broad rich mind of the man em- 
braces the several spheres of thought and, to the best of his abil- 
ity, unifies them. But complete unity is not attained. Even if 
morality supplies a common bond between the Christianity of 
the cultivated and that of the multitude, even if the exalted esti- 
mate of the sacraments unites all believers, there still remains at 
bottom a wide divergence. For when Origen expresses the view 
that Christianity cannot possibly uplift the whole human race 
without appealing to each one according to his individual ca- 
pacity and without accommodating itself to the powers of com- 
prehension even of the less intelligent, the contention itself 
shows how sharp the contrast was between the cultivated and 
the masses, and how far removed the thinker was from his sur- 
roundings. Thus there remain side by side an esoteric and an 
exoteric Christianity. The former by its increasing indepen- 
dence achieves an extraordinary breadth, freedom, and inward- 
ness. But it soars too far above the general conditions to have 
any marked effect upon them. Its content, too, consists rather 
of Platonism coloured by Christianity, of Hellenism inwardly 
intensified, than of the constructive elements of a new world 
and a new order of life. 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 199 

However that may be, the type of Christianity which here- 
with received its stamp permanently triumphed in the Orient 
and also exerted a profound influence upon the Occident. True, 
the increasingly systematic and self-conscious "orthodoxy" 
which arose naturally took exception to several of Origen's doc- 
trines; and, in consequence, his followers, who felt the opposi- 
tion keenly, were forced to concede modifications of the funda- 
mental ideas without, however, being able to prevent the event- 
ual rejection of the system. Yet in its innermost substance the 
above orthodoxy rests upon Origen's intellectual work: "the 
history of dogma and of the Church during the following cen- 
turies is, in the Orient, the history of Origen's philosophy" 
(Harnack). Down to the present time, the conception of Chris- 
tianity as an entrance of eternal being into our temporal world, 
and as a consequent elevation of humanity above all the limits 
and misery of this world, has remained dominant in the Orient. 
Questions of the precise content of history, and of the unique- 
ness of the life of Jesus, pale before the fundamental fact of the 
Incarnation; correspondingly, Christian dogma formed under 
Greek influence has not the slightest word to say either of a char- 
acteristic content of the life of Jesus, or of a spiritual peculiarity 
of Christianity. Dogma, in fact, although it appears to mark 
the complete triumph of Christianity, in reality testifies to a sur- 
render to the power of Greek speculation. The speculative 
movement, however, attained its full strength only with the aid 
of Nea-Platonism, which soon began to pour into Christianity 
in torrents. 

(/3) THE INFLUENCE OF NEO-PLATONISM. GREGORY OF 
NYSSA 

Even the Christian thinkers were unable to avoid the intet 
lectual transformation effected by Plotinus; his view of the 
world presented far too much of what they themselves de- 
manded for them not to be irresistibly attracted by it. Here for 
the first time the whole of reality, from its innermost ground 
to its remotest articulation, was made spiritually living, every- 



200 CHRISTIANITY 

thing fixed and rigid was dissolved and merged into a single life 
stream; at the same time human effort was lifted securely above 
immediate existence, and the sensuous transmuted into a sem- 
blance of an invisible order. This movement irresistibly 
swallowed up whatever in Christianity tended toward specu- 
lation; it also lent to Christian thinking a flexibility and versa- 
tility without which the harmonising of faith and knowledge 
necessary to the construction of an ecclesiastical system of 
thought would hardly have succeeded so soon. Meanwhile, the 
speculative minds by no means forgot the uniqueness of Chris- 
tianity; only the appreciation of it was left to the individual life 
of the soul, and not carried forth into the battle going on in the 
realm of thought. But even if the Christian element as a rule 
followed rather than led, it introduced into the whole a new 
tone, the tone of a softer, more intimate feeling; the whole re- 
mained a mixture, yet this assumed decidedly different forms 
with different individuals. With the intrusion of Neo-Platonism 
there begins for Christian philosophy a new epoch, as distin- 
guished from the previous predominance of Platonism and Stoi- 
cism: not until the culminating point of the Middle Ages was 
reached was this new mode of thought forced to yield to 
Aristotelianism, yet to an Aristotelianism which it itself had 
considerably altered. It will be sufficient for our purpose to 
recall as a representative of this earlier time a man who never- 
theless presents an individual type of life, namely Gregory of 
Nyssa. * 

Gregory of Nyssa belongs to the fathers of orthodoxy, and at 
a later time was celebrated as " the father of the Fathers," owing 
to his services on behalf of the dogma of the trinity. But sin- 
cere as his orthodoxy is, it is upborne and pervaded by a mystical 
speculative tendency, and appears less as the animating spirit 
than as the framework of his religious life. In his doctrine of 
God the perfect personality retreats behind the absolute being, 
and the desire for fellowship with difficulty overmasters the 
striving for complete absorption in the eternal unity. At times 
the different lines of thought are fused in the same conception; 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 201 

then the Neo-Platonic element easily predominates over the 
Christian. In the expression "seeing" God, Gregory is think- 
ing not so much in the early Christian fashion of the nearness of 
person to person as he is of the mystical union with underived 
being; and the name Father, applied to God, indicates in his 
mind not only the affection of loving care, but still more the 
derivation of our being from Him as well as our dependence 
upon His nature; accordingly, rather the metaphysical than the 
ethical relationship. The connection of Gregory's theology 
with philosophical speculation is conspicuously shown in his 
favourite conception of the infinitude of the Supreme Being. 
Such infinitude transcends not only all limits, but also all intel- 
lectual comprehension; any particular attributes here become 
inapplicable; true, the thinker seeks earnestly for names by 
which to designate the transcendent Being, but he quickly con- 
vinces himself of the inappropriateness of all human expressions. 
Hence, he longs impatiently for wings with which to rise above 
the visible and the changeable to abiding nature, to unchange- 
able, self-dependent power. In this he would fain lose himself 
and by absorption in the true light become himself like the 
light. 

With this negation of all attributes, the divine threatens to 
disappear for us into complete darkness, while our world sinks 
to the level of unessential appearance. Yet with Gregory this 
danger is counteracted by an opposing tendency: a union of 
Christian conviction and the Greek sense for beauty causes him 
to recognise in the world an important content, and at the same 
time to make more living the picture of the divine nature, whose 
glory the world reflects. 

The idea of the beautiful was wrought out in Gregory's mind 
not only through the mediation of Plotinus, but also direct from 
Plato, and hence possesses much warmth and fresh vividness. 
He finds beauty poured forth throughout the whole world; 
order and harmony unite all its diversity; everywhere there is 
fixed proportion; even human conduct ought to aim at the right 
mean. The essence of the beautiful, however, is the good, and 



202 CHRISTIANITY 

the supreme beauty is purity of heart. In our rational nature we 
bear an image of the Divine Being; although sin has obscured it, 
by the putting aside of all evil it can be restored, and then it will 
shine forth in perfect purity and beauty, and lead man to the 
divine prototype. To this extent, all knowledge of God de- 
pends upon the moral attitude. "He who purifies his heart 
from all wickedness and all violence, sees in its own beauty the 
image of the divine nature." "Hence, blest is he who is pure of 
heart, since, contemplating his own purity, he looks upon a 
likeness of the original," The transcendent majesty of God we 
cannot fathom, but the measure of the knowledge of God is in 
us: "Purity and repose of soul (aTrdSeia) and the putting away 
of all evil — that is divinity. If it be in thee, then God dwells in 
thee wholly." 

But although such an indwelling of the Divine lends to our 
being a higher worth and to our life a more vivid content, the 
tendency is always above and beyond immediate existence; with 
all its resources the world stirs in us only a longing for higher 
forms of life; it ought never itself to absorb us. Thus life as- 
sumes the character of a yearning that soars above everything 
the world has to offer. "We ought not to wonder at the beauty 
of the vaulted sky, nor at the rays of light, nor at any other form 
of visible beauty, but let ourselves be led by the beauty dis- 
cerned in all these to a longing for the beauty whose glory the 
heavens declare." 

Thus the deepest propensity of the man is to depreciate the 
actual world we live in, and to destroy our pleasure in it. A 
pessimism develops whose intensity of feeling frequently recalls 
modern tendencies. Gregory vividly portrays the manifold suf- 
fering and evils of life, the prevalence of hatred and arrogance, 
of grief and unrest, the power of the passions, whose whole chain 
is set in motion through a single link. The capacities of the soul 
are not here trained to distinguish genuine from spurious beauty. 
However, all particular evils and wrongs pale before the thought 
of the nothingness and perishableness of the whole earthly exis- 
tence. Everything here is inconstant and fleeting. The flowers 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 203 

blossom afresh each spring, but man is vouchsafed but one 
youth, and then declines toward the winter of old age. The 
outward fortunes of life are various, and the throng calls many a 
one happy; but for a profounder vision all such differences dis- 
appear; measured by the highest standard no one career has the 
advantage over another. For, at bottom, all things earthly are 
vain: who can be happy where everything swiftly vanishes, and 
we have the graves of our fathers ever before our eyes ? There 
may be men who do not feel such sorrow, and find their satis- 
faction in sensuous pleasures; but with their animal obtuseness 
they are really more miserable than the others; not to feel evils 
is the greatest of all evils. Jesus said, "Blessed are they that 
mourn." But it was not his intention to glorify sorrow as such, 
but rather the knowledge of goodness which suffering always 
brings with it, since the good itself ever escapes us. 

Still, all the tenderness and delicacy of feeling here manifest 
cannot disguise the fact that the thinker is dominated by an on- 
tological rather than an ethical aim. It is not the longing for 
more love or more justice, but for more of the essential and the 
eternal, that impels Gregory to rise above the sensuous world to 
God. That results in a peculiarly harsh rupture. For, if the 
invisible order alone possesses genuine being, all else is mere 
appearance; thus condemned, everything sensuous must be put 
away, and everything that entangles us in this worthless life 
given up. Among the things which the truly pious man must 
put behind him belongs also "busying oneself with the sciences 
and arts, and with whatever in customs and laws can suitably 
be dispensed with." Following this train of thought — elsewhere 
Gregory is more lenient — marriage is regarded as the beginning 
and the root of the zeal for useless things. He who, like the 
good helmsman, means to steer his course by the stars, which 
never set, should so shape his existence that it is ever poised in 
the middle between life and death, and should never give him- 
self with his whole strength to life. 

Corresponding to this detachment from the world, there is 
an absorption in the inner life of the heart and mind. Here 



20 4 CHRISTIANITY 

Gregory feels himself immediately sure of union with God, and 
from this point the soul pours itself out even into the surround- 
ing world and into nature. He enters into an interchange of 
soul life with nature, such as was scarcely known to earlier 
times; he ignores the relation of nature to man as manifested in 
the ancient feeling for nature, and perceives her power particu- 
larly in the quiet murmur of the forest and in the profound soli- 
tude of the desert. Accordingly, along with his brother Basil, 
he assumes an important place in the historical development of 
the feeling for nature, as has recently been pointed out in par- 
ticular by A. Biese. 

Hence, even as a whole, Gregory's view of life merits more 
consideration than it customarily receives. It is the purest 
philosophical expression we have of that withdrawal of the 
Christian life from the world which spread still more widely 
after the outward triumph of Christianity. 

Christianity was less and less able to adhere to the original 
idea of providing a refuge for pious feeling and moral life in the 
midst of a wicked world ; the influx of ever larger and more un- 
regenerate masses had made necessary continual concessions. 
Finally, the outward triumph, with the consequent inundation 
by those masses, decided the inner downfall. If serious minds, 
really concerned for the eternal life, were not wholly to despair, 
it was necessary to find special means of relief. The Orient and 
the Occident went in different directions: the latter sought com- 
pensation in an exaltation of the Church, as an objective order, 
above the losses sustained by individuals; the former sought it 
in the withdrawing of individuals to a solitary life devoted in 
singleness of purpose and with intense fervour to the service of 
God. The irresistible force with which such a life attracted his 
contemporaries was portrayed by Gregory with keen satis- 
faction, while the tenderness and delicacy of feeling produced 
by self-communion practised under the combined influence 
of Greek and Christian tendencies is nowhere more strik- 
ingly exhibited than in himself, the philosopher of mystic 
yearning. 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 205 



(c) The Formation 0} an Ecclesiastical Rule of Life 

From an early time Christianity manifested a strong tendency 
toward the formation of a visible, organised church, a church 
which the individual should respect as a sacred authority, which 
should set apart holy men and holy things from secular life, 
which should develop an impressive form of worship, and, in 
particular, should rule over the minds of believers through the 
mystery of the sacraments. Gradually this tendency, which at 
the outset was still undeveloped and but an aspect of a larger 
movement, became the chief concern. Such a change might 
well appear to later generations as a mere decline from the fun- 
damental idea of the religion of spirit and of truth. But who- 
ever considers the permanent needs of the human heart, the 
peculiar conditions of that age, and the peculiar character and 
requirements of Christianity, will not only understand the his- 
torical necessity of the change, but will no longer look upon it 
as a mere decline. The conception of the Church, of a peculiar 
sphere of life dominated by religion, springs from the innermost 
nature of Christianity. It was a proclamation to mankind that 
the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; it was the Evangel of the 
kingdom. The hopes for the near future had not been fulfilled ; 
Christianity must reconcile itself to this world of unreason for 
a longer period; in consequence, it must reckon with an inev- 
itable decline of the first enthusiasm. But unless it wished to 
accommodate itself wholly to the world, and so surrender its 
peculiar character, it was forced to mark out and develop an 
individual sphere of life, opposed to the world, where its ideals 
and hopes might take refuge. The conviction, so essential to 
Christianity, of the birth of a new world, of the creation of a 
new life and being out of the new relation to God, was repre- 
sented in the field of history by the Church. True, the precise 
shape which matters assumed did not fully coincide with this 
general ideal; a community with more freedom, more inde- 
pendence, more inner life, would have better harmonised with 



206 CHRISTIANITY 

it. But it was the peculiar conditions of the time which deter- , 
mined a development in the opposite direction. A small hand- 
ful of men struggling against the disproportionate power of the 
world demands something more than mere toleration; it pro- 
claims itself as the nucleus of a new world, as the people di- 
vinely called to rule. And will not this small company be com- 
pelled at first to hold firmly together, and to oppose to all in- 
cipient divisions the authority of the body as a whole ? Will not 
the tangible and visible elements of the organisation make 
stronger and stronger appeal in proportion as the enthusiastic 
uplift of the first beginnings dies down? Above all, it was in 
the overcoming of threatened schisms that the Church found its 
unity, and at the same time saved Christianity from being di- 
vided into sects. Moreover, the growing influence of the Latins 
led to the further development of organisation and to the strength- 
ening of the sensuous elements of the religious life. The later 
Greek tendency to refine the sensuous is foreign to the Latin 
character; the latter, on the contrary, sees in the sensuous an 
essential constituent of reality. Hand in hand with this view 
goes a pre-eminent capacity for organisation, and great shrewd- 
ness and skill in the treatment of practical questions. On the 
other hand, the speculative sense of the Latins is little developed; 
and, in particular, there is lacking the idea of an inner compul- 
sion of truth, such as the ancient Greek world contributed to 
the Christian, an idea which increases the inner independence 
of individuals, and prevents any rigid restraint of their powers. 
Finally, a critical review of the above development should 
also consider the general state of things outside of Christianity. 
The religious longing which, since the close of the second cen- 
tury, swept all intellectual life before it, bears throughout, de- 
spite all the subjective eagerness for happiness, the stamp of an 
enfeebled and languid age. The desire of the time is not for 
activity, but rest; not for responsibility, but for release from 
care; not for the dangers of freedom, but for the security of sub- 
jection; not for rational comprehension, but for the magical 
fascination of the mysterious and the incomprehensible; not for 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 207 

the elevation to a purely spiritual reverence for God, but for an 
actual presence of the higher world, as impressive as possible, 
and dominating the mind by its sensuous magnificence. In an 
age characterised by such a mood, only the development which 
actually took place could have made Christianity victorious. 
But the recognition of this historical necessity is tantamount to 
a most decisive rejection of the claim that Christianity must 
permanently keep to this form: "the characteristics which, at 
that time, gave Christianity the victory, do not vouch for the 
permanence of the victory in history" (Harnack). 

Thus the visible Church steadily gained in power and author- 
ity; thus it steadily transformed moral duty into the fulfilment 
of certain requirements, and brought up its members to com- 
plete subordination and to willing obedience. The less suffi- 
cient the individuals were in themselves, the more the Church 
grew in unapproachable majesty, the more fixed became the 
idea of its sanctity, the more it had to minister to human im- 
perfection by peculiar means of grace. In fact, even those 
writers who combat the ecclesiastical idea with special energy, 
make loud complaint of the insufficiency of the individual, of 
the weakness of his faith, and of the indifference of his love. 
With the increase of this tendency the Church appears more 
and more as a divine institution, not as a human organisation; 
the honour shown it is manifested toward God, and any injury 
done it is done to Him. Only through the Church, the 
mother of Christians, is there a way to the Divine Father: "No 
one can have God as his Father, except he have the Church as 
his mother" (Cyprian). The individual owes the Church obe- 
dience and pious reverence; holding aloof from it is looked upon 
as malevolent contempt or as presumptuous obstinacy. That 
stamps schism and heresy as the worst of wanton crimes, from 
whose consequences not even martyrdom can afford relief. 
For all other offences affect individuals, while this affects the 
whole community. 

Simple and, particularly for the Latins, convincing as this 
line of thought was, very serious perplexities arose from the fact 



208 CHRISTIANITY 

that some — precisely on account of the esteem in which the 
Church was held — insisted upon a certain moral excellence in the 
incumbents of ecclesiastical benefices, and connected the validity 
of their official acts with the possession of those qualities, while 
others rejected this demand as dangerous to the prestige of the 
Church: in the former case the moral side retained its inde- 
pendence, in the latter it was subordinated to ecclesiastical 
and religious needs. The latter tendency triumphed; the 
demand for a strong organisation and for the certainty of 
aid overcame all moral scruples. At the same time, the Church 
was gradually transformed from a fellowship of holy men into 
a legal institution resting upon mystic and even magical foun- 
dations. 

The exaltation of the Church was accompanied by the estab- 
lishment of a priesthood. The priests, particularly the bishops, 
became the accredited intermediaries between God and the con- 
gregation; they became the dispensers of the divine grace. 
Above all, the increasing power of the idea of sacrifice operated 
to exalt their position. From an early time Christianity had 
been unable to do without the idea of sacrifice; but at first the 
opposition to heathen sacrifices predominated. An ethical re- 
ligion saw the true sacrifice in the offering up of the heart. "To 
foster innocence and justice, to keep free from all deceit, to res- 
cue men from danger — these are our sacrifices, these are holy in 
the sight of God. With us the more just one is, the more pious 
is he." So thought Minucius Felix, who glorified the reliance 
upon simple morality, the relinquishing of all peculiar religious 
acts, as the distinguishing merit of Christianity. Even Lactan- 
tius believes, "That is the true worship in which the spirit of the 
worshipper offers itself to God as a spotless sacrifice." Still, in 
the meantime, the idea of sacrifice had assumed a magical char- 
acter. The more oppressive became the fear of a God who 
judged and punished, and the more acutely conscious of his own 
unworthiness the individual became, the more vehement was 
the longing for extraordinary means of help and expiation. 
Here appears "in the foreground the atoning work of Christ. 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 209 

It is not so much the incarnation — that is a presupposition — as 
it is the death of Christ which is viewed as the punctum saliens; 
and even thus early it is treated from every conceivable stand- 
point, as propitiatory sacrifice, as reconciliation, as purchase 
price, as vicarious suffering of death upon the cross" (Harnack). 
This change operated to exalt the priesthood particularly after 
the idea established itself through Cyprian that the priests, in 
offering sacrifice, repeat the sacrifice of Christ. Hence, the need 
for authority and the need for magic coincided; the "priest of 
God" was exalted far above the congregation, and invested with 
superhuman sanctity. 

In the same direction tended the development of a double 
morality; originating at the very beginning of Christianity, this 
gradually embodied itself in a fixed order of things. It offered 
the opportunity of incorporating into Christianity the ideal of 
asceticism — something which possessed an irresistible attrac- 
tion for the age — without implying that the ordinary conditions of 
life must be given up. If, in other words, there is the possibility 
of exceeding the imposed obligations, we have surplus merit; and 
this excess can be applied to the shortage of others. So it was 
argued respecting the martyrs who witnessed to the faith with 
their blood, and, in fact, all the more because the majority of 
the congregation did not follow them. upon the path of thorns; 
so people thought also of those who, by painful abstention from 
worldly goods and pleasures, such as fasting, poverty, and cel- 
ibacy, made sacrifices to God. To such meritorious works is 
ascribed the power of blotting out sins, at least venial sins, 
which, following the Stoic example, were clearly distinguished 
as pardonable offences (peccata venialia) from deadly sins. In 
all this we see a valuation of performance as such, and a grada- 
tion of worth in proportion to the magnitude of the work; at 
the same time, an attempt to counterpoise guilt and merit. 
Thus there springs up a system of compensations; morals as- 
sume more and more the character of a legal order. The ad- 
ministrators of this order are the priests. While the conception 
of a universal priesthood is not completely nullified by such a 



2io CHRISTIANITY 

development, so far as practical life and immediate feeling are 
concerned its influence is much restricted. 

The result was that, along with the visible strengthening of 
organisation and increase of pomp, there was a marked external- 
isation and coarsening of life, an enormous influx of alien ele- 
ments, and the danger of a sudden decline of Christianity. To 
be sure, counteracting influences were not wanting. The power 
and inwardness of Christian morality were not extinguished; 
the thought of the speedy coming of the Day of Judgment kept 
men's minds on the alert; the conflict with the heathen world, 
a world which, after the middle of the third century, began to 
exert its full power against Christianity, preserved them from 
falling into indolent routine. Moreover, the restriction of indi- 
vidual freedom was not oppressively felt, so long as resistance 
to the superior might of the world made united action necessary, 
and so long as it was only their personal choice which bound 
individuals to the Church. But a change inevitably came with 
the elevation of Christianity to the official religion of the state; 
for whatever was questionable in the transformation of Chris- 
tianity into a visible organisation depending mainly upon magi- 
cal rites now irresistibly produced its full effects. With all the 
perfection of system, the splendour of ritual, the zeal for works, 
there was lacking a substantial inner life, a spiritual depth. 
Simple morality was neglected in favour of religion, while re- 
ligion itself was deeply impregnated with the passions and in- 
terests and even the sensuous conceptions of mere humanity; it 
possessed little inspiration, little inwardly transforming power. 
Christianity was in imminent danger of suffering inner destruc- 
tion while outwardly triumphant; if ever in its history it needed 
a great and original mind, it needed such now — a mind in touch 
with the age and sharing its needs, but also one which would 
raise the age above itself and guide it to eternal truth, so far as 
this was anywise attainable. Such a mind appeared in Augus- 
tine. Passing through the profoundest personal struggles, and 
dedicating to the Church the unremitting toil of a lifetime, he 
gave depth and power to the religious longing of his time, and 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 211 

infused into the ecclesiastical system a spiritual content. So, 
too, he brought to its highest philosophical expression the early 
Christian view of life. 

II. AUGUSTINE 

(a) General Characteristics 

Augustine (354-430) is the one great philosopher sprung from 
the soil of Christianity proper. He unites within himself all 
the influences of the past and all the fresh impulses of his own 
age, and out of them he creates something which is new and 
greater. Rooted in a Latin environment, he is still subject to 
powerful Hellenic and Oriental influences; he combines early 
Christian and Neo-Platonic elements in a new way, with the 
result that the peculiarity of the former is more carefully pre- 
served, and, although the form of union is open to attack, it has 
dominated all the later history of Christianity. The develop- 
ment of Augustine's thought is in a pre-eminent degree an ex- 
pression of personality, in fact, of direct personal life. All his 
work, indeed, serves the one purpose of the unfolding and en- 
joyment of his own being; in all the varied forms of activity the 
ultimate goal remains the same, the well-being of the entire 
nature. Happiness, blessedness, this it is upon which the whole 
thought and passionate longing of the man are concentrated- 
happiness, not in the restricted sense of the earlier Latin Fathers, 
but as the complete satisfaction of the inner nature, as the 
vivifying of all the powers, as blessedness extending to the deep- 
est foundations of being. Accordingly, aspiration and effort here 
absorb all else; they not only accompany but permeate and 
transform intellectual activity. Such happiness as this ought 
not to hover before one as a distant hope; it should become 
a living presence and complete possession. For, "he who is 
happy merely in hope, is not yet happy; in fact, he still pa- 
tiently awaits the happiness which he does not yet possess." 
But that we can and must attain happiness Augustine regards 
as perfectly certain; in his mind this conviction needs no proof 



212 CHRISTIANITY 

and admits of no doubt, rather, it affords the mightiest weapon 
for combating doubt. The longing for happiness overcomes 
all opposition and fuses into one even the most hostile elements; 
it is the source of life, love, and passion in all work, and gives to 
labour the strongest incentives. Hence, all that Augustine 
undertakes is marked by passionate fervour and vehement emo- 
tion. The religious longing of mankind, often the expression of 
a languid and ascetic mood, is here pervaded by the most pow- 
erful vitality; even cognition rises to a form of self-assertion and 
exaltation of being. This invasion of the whole range of his 
intellectual work by a colossal subjectivity actuated by a de- 
vouring thirst for happiness, constitutes at once the greatness 
and the source of danger in Augustine. 

While, therefore, Augustine's view of the world and of life is 
necessarily influenced by this peculiarity of his nature, it is 
more particularly characterised by the fact that it includes within 
itself the sharpest contrasts, and thus keeps thought in ceaseless 
movement. 

On the one hand, there is the impulse to grasp all the fulness 
of being in one mighty effort, to concentrate life upon itself, to 
seize upon blessedness directly with the whole nature; in other 
words, a soaring above all forms and definite ideas, a total ab- 
sorption in pure feeling. On the other, there is the desire to 
compass and illuminate with thought the whole length and 
breadth of the universe, to set forth likewise the inner world, 
and to give an account of all activity; in other words, a removal 
from the immediate impression, a vast intellectual structure, a 
theoretical intermediation of fundamental conceptions. From 
the union of both these tendencies springs a powerful movement 
of religious speculation, in which feeling and thought, immedi- 
ate and mediated life, are inseparably intertwined. But this 
antithesis is variously intersected by another. On one side 
there is a ceaseless striving for pure spirituality, a transmutation 
of things into thoughts, the underived independence of a tran- 
scendental inner life; on the other, a glowing sensuousness, an 
insistence upon tangible data, upon the sure contact and grasp, 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 213 

the pleasurable tasting and enjoyment, of things; and both are 
fused through the medium of a grandiose fantasy capable of 
wresting forms even from the obscure depths of the inner world. 
Consequently, in the same personality we have not only an un- 
tiring creative impulse and a turbulent energy of life, but re- 
straint due to moral disunion ; for there is also the consciousness 
of helplessness in the presence of his own problematic nature, 
a passionate longing for deliverance through supernatural power, 
and for translation to a state of rest and peace. The general 
problem of morals is here intensified by the fact that Augustine's 
sensuousness is not of the naive but of the subtle sort, and 
threatens to poison and debase all effort. Finally, Augustine 
exhibits a twofold nature in that he deeply and truly feels and 
lives his experiences, and yet is able to reflect upon them with 
clearness and composure, as if they were wholly objective. 

These various tendencies are not brought together in a com- 
prehensive system and there harmonised, nor are they, so to 
say, adjusted to one another from the outset, as with Aristotle; 
rather, each develops in isolation, and only in the end is there 
contact and union with the others. Hence, we have sharp con- 
trasts, halting procedure, working at cross purposes, and mani- 
fold conflict of opposing tendencies. There result harsh con- 
tradictions, not only in small matters but in great; continued 
unrest, crossed and recrossed by opposing currents; but there 
results also a ceaseless tension and vibration of life, an ever- 
recurring inception of creative work, the most active flux of all 
things. Although such a medley of contradictory elements 
often seriously complicates the structural development of the 
thought, it does not in the least interfere with a full expression of 
spontaneous and intimate emotion, the utterance of pure nat- 
ural tones of the simple human sort. In other words, the inner 
religious life here attains a childlike simplicity and a fervent 
emotional expression such as literature affords only at altitudes 
seldom reached. 

This interaction of conflicting tendencies not only increases 
the difficulty of understanding Augustine's teachings, but also 



214 CHRISTIANITY 

interferes with a just appreciation of the nature of the man. 
Possessed of an unusual sensitiveness, he is so far carried away 
by the impression of the moment that he lives in it exclusively 
and is oblivious of all else. He is thus led to extreme, fanatical 
assertions, which represent his convictions, indeed, but not his 
entire faith; for here he condemns and rejects what yonder he 
honours and loves. The churchly Christian in him at times 
speaks of culture like a narrow-minded sectarian ; yet as a com- 
prehensive and profound thinker he also treats the ecclesiastical 
order, with its authority and its faith, as a thing of expediency, 
an institution established in the interest of the masses and of 
human weakness. Hence, it is possible to set one Augustine 
over against the other, and so to cast doubt upon the sincerity 
of both. Part of the contradictions disappear, if we take into 
account the inner development which gradually forced him 
from a universal and philosophical to a positive and ecclesias- 
tical treatment of things; but the most serious contradictions 
survive all the changes of development, and it would be a de- 
cided mistake to attempt to force his thought, as a whole, into 
a system. On the other hand, it is only necessary to press for- 
ward to the living whole of his personality in order to find a bond 
of union underlying the manifold elements, and rendering their 
contradictions intelligible. But this personality cannot be 
brought within the limits of formal logic; and the conflicting 
elements in the man's nature necessarily find their way into his 
work. Still, Augustine could never have exerted the influence 
which he did, had there not been an essential personal veracity 
back of his rhetorical utterance. Quite enough that is unedify- 
ing remains, indeed, to be overcome. In the remarkable mix- 
ture of traits which are combined in Augustine's nature, nobility 
and justice are not so strongly represented that they are not at 
times completely submerged by the waves of passion. In par- 
ticular, his is not a pure, exalted nature, like that of Plato, for 
example; even in his loftiest soaring, he cannot wholly free 
himself from lower elements; and he seems unable to touch the 
profoundest depths without also stirring up a great deal of 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 215 

muddy slime. This must set a definite limit to our appreciation 
of the man. Yet, however much we may find to criticise, if we 
follow Augustine's self-revelations to their source, they always 
disclose a genuinely human and wholly intelligible aspiration; 
they reveal a man of integrity, a powerful man, and one to whom 
nothing human is foreign. And if, among the saints of the 
Church, there was scarcely another so little saintly, so passion- 
ate, so full of weaknesses and errors, there also lies in his kin- 
ship with common human nature something of an atonement, 
and surely the secret of his power over the minds of men. 

(b) The Soul 0} Life 

Both the starting-point and an abiding characteristic of the 
Augustinian view of life are to be found in a radical dissatisfac- 
tion with the natural world, particularly with the condition of 
man. Scarcely any one has painted the miseries of human ex- 
istence in harsher colours and with more intensity of feeling than 
Augustine. The helplessness of the individual and the abuses 
of social life, the dissensions and wars between peoples, the mis- 
carriages of justice, the unavoidable entanglement in all the 
cares of our friends, the multitude of temptations, the constant 
hovering between fear and hope, the painful uncertainty of the 
human lot— all these speak here with eloquent voices; and the 
distressing decadence of the age adds an individual poignancy 
to the sense of common human misery. The recourse of the 
philosopher, to blunt his sensibility and master the feelings of 
pain, appears to Augustine as morally inadmissible, even if at 
all likely to be effectual; it would result, he thinks, in a harsh 
apathy, a hardening of the nature, an extinction of love. More- 
over, evil besets us not merely from without; it dwells in our 
own nature; in the form of sensuality and pride it is the motive 
power of conduct; we may form good resolutions, but the abil- 
ity to execute them is lacking. Then, too, there is the intellec- 
tual incapacity of man, who is overwhelmed with doubt and un- 
able to penetrate to the truth. Amid such extremities and ob- 



2 i6 CHRISTIANITY 

stacles he is threatened with complete despair; casting off the 
burden of life might seem to be the only refuge. 

As a fact, man behaves quite differently. Amid all his suffer- 
ing he displays a tenacious clinging to life, a powerful impulse 
toward self-preservation, an unconditional will to live (esse se 
velle). Even the most miserable existence is preferred to de- 
struction: the criminal, condemned to death, clutches eagerly, 
as if it were a priceless blessing, the pitiful life which a reprieve 
confers upon him. A similar desire for life pervades the whole 
of nature; from the monstrous dragon to the smallest worm, 
every creature defends his life and exerts all his powers to avoid 
destruction. Would such a universal fact be intelligible, if the 
world of suffering and of evil were the whole of reality, and the 
being which in its first aspect is so pitiful were not in its essential 
nature good and capable of happiness ? 

These observations serve only to confirm Augustine in his 
own attitude. He himself is not oppressed by the suffering and 
misery; rather, the more the latter are intensified, the more he 
feels and knows that in his innermost nature he is superior to 
them; in fact, it was precisely the misery of immediate experi- 
ence that awakened in him the firm conviction that this world 
could not be the whole world. Thus, behind the repressed 
physical life-impulses appears a vital metaphysical impulse, 
which emphatically forbids a renunciation of blessedness and 
the desire to live. 

But such a change, such a new justification of life, requires 
another foundation and other relations than those of the natural 
world; only in a transcendental, perfect Being, only in God, can 
the new life find its foothold. The reality of this Divine Being 
is accepted by Augustine as the axiom which is the principal 
assurance of the nature of our own being; so surely as man is 
something more than nature, so certainly is he established in 
God and surrounded by a divine life. 

But besides this assertion of an axiomatic truth, there are not 
wanting theoretical analysis and demonstration; these progress 
from merely colourless outlines to a perceptible content by pass- 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 217 

ing through the stages of being, spirit, and personality. In the 
first place, immediate being, characterised by hindrance and 
suffering, a realm of ceaseless change and unstable becoming, 
cannot possibly be true being; a true, genuine, real being — the 
cumulation is Augustine's own — can only be an absolutely un- 
changeable nature, an essence which, untouched by the stream 
of time, ever remains what it is. True life can only be eternal 
life. Real being, however, is naught else but God; all genuine 
life springs from Him, and refers back to Him. 

Thus all reality has as its deepest ground a spiritual Being. 
Simple reflection shows us that the most certain point, to which 
no doubt attaches, is the existence of the soul. For, although we 
may doubt everything, doubt itself proves the fact of thought, 
and hence, of the soul. Our inner life is immediately present to 
us; it cannot be imaginary. That we exist, and at the same 
time know that we exist, and cherish our being and our knowl- 
edge, is an incontestable fact; the existence of a material world, 
on the other hand, does not admit of strict proof. Thus, the in- 
wardness of the psychical life leads Augustine to the idea of a 
pure spirituality; the source of this, once again, is God, the 
prototype of the nature of man. 

In spite of the individuality of his argument, Augustine's de- 
mand for pure spirituality and real eternity is, after all, Platonic 
in character. At the same time, in other respects he breaks 
away from Platonism and opens up new lines of thought, inas- 
much as the demand for more power and individual life leads 
him to seek for the essence of the soul in volition rather than in 
knowledge. Just as, in his view, the life of the soul is funda- 
mentally and chiefly the striving for well-being and self-realisa- 
tion, so its completest expression is the will, as that in which life 
attains unity and is raised to full activity. In fact, it is even 
affirmed that all beings are nothing but will (nihil aliud quam 
voluntates) ; " the will is the comprehensive principle of all activi- 
ties of mind" (Heinzelmann). This conviction became steadily 
more pronounced throughout Augustine's life, and separated 
him further and further from the intellectualism of antiquity. 



2i8 CHRISTIANITY 

Since, however, Augustine retains the Greek method of pro- 
ceeding from the macrocosm to the microcosm, or rather, of in- 
terpreting the microcosm as a miniature macrocosm, the pri- 
macy of the will applies, in his view, also to the Divine Being. 
The trinity — according to his conception properly the inner life 
of the Deity and not merely the order of His revelation — appears 
as a circle of being (power), knowledge (wisdom), and will 
(love). Life, divided in knowledge, returns to itself in volition 
and strengthens by deeds the unity of its nature. This proto- 
typal essence, according to Augustine, is reproduced in every 
being, but particularly in the human soul. 

Thus, Augustine's idea of God brings about a union, indeed 
a fusion, of speculative and religious, of Platonic and Christian, 
elements. Pure real being becomes at the same time the ideal 
of personal life, "the good acting upon the will as all-powerful 
love" (Harnack). On the one hand, God is not a particular 
somewhat, existing along with other things, but the inclusive 
whole of true being, beyond which there is no reality; to sepa- 
rate oneself from Him means to fall into nothingness; to unite 
oneself to Him means to rise from appearance to reality. On 
the other hand, God is the ideal of holiness, justice, and good- 
ness — the perfect personality raised incomparably above the 
human estate. By contact and reciprocal influence both these 
conceptions are modified; that of pure being receives life and 
warmth, while the conception of personality outgrows the hu- 
man type, as appears, indeed, in Augustine's relentless attacks 
upon the " anthropomorphites," who represent God as having 
human form and human passions. 

If, accordingly, true being and the highest good are merged 
into one in the idea of God, and if real and eternal life is only 
to be found in God, then everything depends upon the relation 
to the Supreme Being, and only from this relation as a starting- 
point is there salvation, happiness, and self-preservation. It is, 
therefore, with the profoundest conviction that Augustine says, 
"If I seek thee, O God, it is the blessed life I seek. I will seek 
thee, that my soul may live." 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 219 

Corresponding to the twofold root of the idea of God is a 
twofold way of seeking God. In the one case Augustine fol- 
lows the Neo-platonic speculation: it is pure intuition which is 
to lift the whole man into the world of transcendent essence, and 
"ecstasy" is to extinguish all self-seeking. Man here desires of 
God nothing but God Himself; the Supreme Being is an end in 
Himself, not a means to happiness. But, even in embracing 
mysticism, Augustine preserves his individuality. With intui- 
tion he unites in the most intimate manner, love; feeling is not 
repressed but ennobled; a warm, emotional life pours into the 
mysticism and gives an unwonted intensity even to its expression. 
No one has done more than Augustine to confer a distinctive 
character upon Christian mysticism. 

More characteristic and important, however, is the other kind 
of relation to God which Augustine develops; it is the living 
relation of the human to the absolute personality, an ethico- 
religious fellowship with God. Here, also, the world, with its 
bright diversity, lies without, and the whole soul yearns for a 
share in eternal love; but in this instance, there results a far 
richer content than in the case of mysticism, and it is not renun- 
ciation, but a strengthening of the purified, indeed regenerated, 
life of man that is required. The state of the individual soul, 
the moral condition of the inner man, becomes the chief prob- 
lem of life and the centre of all activity; through intimate per- 
sonal fellowship with God, the activity of a human being be- 
comes immeasurably exalted; there arises a history of the soul, 
and the absorbing interest of this history forces everything else, 
even the most remarkable and disturbing experiences, into the 
periphery of existence. Religion here exerts the most fruitful 
influence in the direction of raising inner experience to complete 
independence and inherent worth, and of establishing the life of 
the soul firmly within itself. The special reason why religion is 
here capable of originating and effecting so much is that it em- 
braces within itself a complete and permanent antithesis. For 
now there is definitely developed the inner dialectic of the basic 
principle of Christianity, namely, the reciprocal action of the 



220 CHRISTIANITY 

farthest possible separation from God and the nearest possible 
approach to God. Between God and man, or the perfect and 
the most unworthy being, the holy and the sinful, there yawns 
an immeasurable chasm, the consequence of guilt; but, at the 
same time, by a free act of God, the separation is annulled, and, 
in their innermost natures, a complete union of the divine and 
the human is established. Grave inner conflicts, indeed, are not 
all past, but there now rises above them a blessed peace, and 
we may hear resounding through the Confessions, like a funda- 
mental tone, the single thought, "Thou hast created us for Thy- 
self, and our heart rests not until it rests in Thee." 

The movement thus begun propagated itself in a copious lit- 
erature — suffice it to recall Thomas a Kempis; it found new- 
ness of life in the Reformation ; and, beyond the religious sphere, 
it possessed the significance of a turning point for the indepen- 
dent development of an emotional life, and was an important step 
toward the introduction of a new world. 

(c) The Religious Form of the Spiritual World 

Augustine's incomparable and incontestible greatness lies in 
his disclosure of the mighty contrast within man himself. By 
removing the source of all truth and love immeasurably above 
human unworthiness, and, at the same time, bringing man into 
the closest intimacy and ceaseless communion with it; by at 
once deeply humiliating man and exalting him to a supreme 
height, he fashioned a type of religious emotional life indepen- 
dent of all particular confessions, indeed, a type valid for all hu- 
manity. But, certain as it is that Augustine attains truly classi- 
cal greatness in his grasp of the deep things of life, when it comes 
to the determination of particulars he falls under the influence 
of a languid and declining age, and is diverted into uncertain 
paths. Augustine is stronger in accentuating an antithesis than 
in solving it; hence he leaves the religious life too much in the 
transcendent Beyond, instead of reuniting it with the life of 
every day, and so utilising it for the latter' s elevation. The tre- 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 221 

mendous force with which this man throws himself into the 
thought of the moment results in his opposing so sharply the 
divine and the human, grace and works, that the gain of one 
side involves the loss of the other. God seems only the more 
highly exalted, the deeper man is debased. To think meanly of 
man, to deny him all independence, all power for good, and 
every sort of freedom, thus becomes the accepted token of piety. 
The sublimity of the divine is measured by the remoteness from 
it of the human. Can we marvel that, with such a point of 
view, Augustine is unable to paint the depravity, the worthless- 
ness, of man in vivid enough colours? But let us accord full 
recognition to his service in grasping so profoundly and in por- 
traying so powerfully the contradictions in human nature, the 
incapacity of man in the presence of life's inevitable problems, 
the limits of mere nature, and the indispensableness of free 
grace. By this service, he rescued the best part of Paulinism, at 
least for the Occident. But since, under the influences of that 
restless time, he failed to carry through the new conception, 
failed to raise the new man to fulness of power, and to find in 
freedom itself the highest manifestation of grace, his religion and 
piety retain a one-sidedly passive character, they do not rise to 
manliness and joyousness, and are much exposed to the danger 
of morbid self-torment, of an uncritical, inactive piety, even of 
a sensualistic development of life. 

Such dangers extend beyond the immediate condition of the 
soul and influence the life of the community; hence the power 
of the man gives also in this instance a fatal force to his errors. 
It is, further, a peculiar element of Augustine's greatness that 
he seeks to imbue every form of activity with religion, and will 
not permit anything to enter into the spiritual life which has 
not been elevated and consecrated by religion. He is, therefore, 
the first to erect upon Christian soil a comprehensive system of 
religious culture. By it he accomplished a great quickening and 
deepening of the whole of existence. At the same time, the per- 
sistent transcendence of the divine made this effort one-sided 
and problematic ; the length and breadth of the work of civili- 



222 CHRISTIANITY 

sation is not touched; in fact, the least dwelling upon secular 
matters is thought to endanger the cause of religion. Life conse- 
quently becomes seriously dwarfed and narrowed; there is 
wanting any adequate counterpoise to the surging and seething 
of vehement subjectivity. With such detachment and over- 
straining, there is danger that religion will be reduced to a utili- 
tarianism which ascribes values only to what is useful for "the 
soul's salvation," and therewith, in spite of Augustine's resolute 
effort to rise above human littleness, again makes man the cen- 
tral point. These various dangers, no less than the unmis- 
takable greatness of Augustine's achievement, will come out 
still more distinctly when we pass in review his treatment of the 
good, the true, and the beautiful. 

With the good, i. e., the morally good, the separation from 
mere nature is insisted upon with peculiar force. Morality con- 
sists in nothing but the full and free surrender to God ; all good 
acts, especially works of mercy — here the chief part of practical 
morality — appear as sacrifices offered to God ; that only which is 
done out of fellowship with God is truly good, or constitutes a 
"true" sacrifice. He who loves himself, his kin, and father- 
land on their own account has not the right love, but only he 
who loves them on God's account, and from God — only he who 
loves God in them; for he alone loves in them what is real and 
good. "We love God and our neighbour with the same love, 
but God on His own account, ourselves and our neighbour on 
God's account." 

But just as God is the sole end, so He alone is the source of 
the power for good; only He can inspire us with genuine love; 
from Him we have derived whatever right feeling we possess; 
and whatever is regarded as our merit is His gift (merita nostra 
dona ejus). The attempt to found the moral life wholly upon 
the eternal love leads Augustine to stigmatise all self-confidence 
on man's part, all self-reliant conduct, even when there is no evil 
intention, as mistaken, bad, and vicious. "Whatever does not 
spring from faith is sin." To attempt to achieve by one's own 
capacities what springs only from the power and grace of God 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 223 

seems to Augustine nothing but over- weening self-conceit; in- 
deed, this self-confidence of God's creatures, this presumption 
of trying to accomplish something by means of merely natural 
faculties, Augustine regards as the chief source of evil. Hence, 
he makes the sharpest distinction between an action springing 
from natural impulses and inclinations, and conduct based upon 
higher power and developed through self-denial; and here we 
have an elimination of the naturalistic morality which antiquity 
never wholly laid aside. One of the principal conceptions of 
Christianity thus receives a distant formulation and a sure 
foundation. 

But, although the giving of a religious character to morals 
resulted in a liberation from nature, serious dangers arose from 
the direct and complete subordination to a religion which leaves 
the divine and the human rigidly opposed to each other. Con- 
duct, in relation to the world and to other men, loses all inde- 
pendent value. If in all our relations we are to love God only; 
if in our fellow-men we are to love, not the human beings as 
such, not the father and mother, not the friend and fellow- 
countryman, but only the divine that is in them, then it is only 
natural to break off all connection with the lower spheres, and, 
instead of seeking the divine through such a mediation, seek it 
directly in itself. Complete indifference toward our surround- 
ings, the blunting of our feelings for our kin and for humanity, 
would therefore seem to be the proper worship and the highest 
form of sacrifice. Augustine himself did not so intend, nor did 
he so conduct himself — that sufficiently appears from his relation 
to his mother; but an abandonment of good works, a divorce of 
the worship of the eternal from the love of man, is none the less 
a consequence of his view. Phenomena of this sort had already 
been displayed by Augustine's own age; and they were again 
displayed by monasticism in that tendency which extolled an 
uninterrupted contemplation of God as the highest life. 

Likewise, the propensity to deprive man of all moral desert 
is, in Augustine's treatment, fraught with serious dangers; it 
threatens, namely, to suppress human initiative, to transfer 



224 CHRISTIANITY 

moral decision to a point above us, to cause good to be done 
not by us but to us. But if the moral life of man is reduced to 
a miracle and to grace; if, without any co-operation on his part, 
it is instilled into him from above, a marked materialising of 
life is almost inevitable. Such a result, in fact, appears with 
Augustine himself in his doctrine of the sacraments; and it in- 
creased in mediaeval Christianity. 

Similar convictions are brought to light in Augustine's hand- 
ling of the problem of truth. His passionate longing for the full 
possession and enjoyment of truth is not satisfied with its mere 
approximation, such, e. g., as the attainment of probabilities. 
For is it possible to recognise something as probable without 
a knowledge of the truth ? If any one finds a resemblance be- 
tween thy brother and thy father, and yet does not know thy 
father, he surely will appear to thee foolish. Particularly where 
the fundamental conditions of one's own life are in question, 
there can be no peace and contentment without a full posses- 
sion, a secure having and holding, of the truth. But such a de- 
gree of certainty is indispensable only in those matters which 
are necessary to salvation, not for everything which falls within 
the sphere of man's contemplation; here doubt may enjoy 
so much the freer scope. Nowhere else does Augustine display 
so strong a leaning toward religious utilitarianism. He is inter- 
ested not so much in the world as in the action of God in the 
world, and particularly upon ourselves; God and the soul, these 
are the only objects of which knowledge is needful; all knowledge 
becomes ethico-religious knowledge, or rather ethico-religious 
conviction, an eager faith of the whole man. Instead of musing 
upon the secrets of the heavens and the earth, the courses of the 
stars and the structure of animals, the Christian should be satis- 
fied devoutly to glorify the goodness of God as the cause of all 
heavenly and earthly, all visible and invisible, things. Any fur- 
ther consideration of the diversity of the world, especially of na- 
ture, arouses a multitude of misgivings. It is superfluous, since 
it does not increase our happiness; inadmissible, since it con- 
sumes time required for more important things; dangerous to 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 225 

the convictions, since the direction of thought toward the world 
easily leads us to look upon the corporeal as alone real; injurious 
to the moral attitude, since it produces overweening self-con- 
ceit. Hence, we should patiently bear our ignorance, and sup- 
press all desire for the investigation of superfluous things — the 
vain thirst for knowledge! "Man's wisdom is piety." 

The beautiful, too, assumed a peculiar cast as incorporated 
into a religious system of life. Here the aim is the comprehen- 
sion of the greatness and glory of God as revealed in His works, 
in the total structure of the universe. The sensuous charm of 
things accordingly retreats into the background, likewise the 
absorption in a concrete object. The main thing now is the 
ascent from the diversity of the world to its all-dominating unity, 
from the visible phenomenon to its invisible ground, from the 
transitory individual things to their immutable essence. The 
joy of the ancient Greek in the beauty of the world once more 
flashes forth: proportion, type, order (modus, species, ordo) 
dominate and pervade all being, spiritual no less than material; 
the more anything shares in these, the better it is; and there is 
nothing well-ordered which is not beautiful. One of the chief 
points in the Augustinian view is that all the diversity of being 
and of life unites to form the harmony of the universe; even the 
moral world we shall find falls under the sway of this aesthetic 
conception, and is described as a work of art. For Augustine, 
also, the idea of the beautiful is something intermediate between 
the pure inward thought and the visible existence; the influence 
of this conception is displayed especially by his first philosoph- 
ical treatises after his conversion. But he is always compelled 
to pass from the contemplation of beauty to the thought of its 
final ground, to the vivid realisation of eternal power and good j 
ness. Even here the thought of religious utility, of the salvation 
of the soul, is dominant; only as a means to that end does Au- 
gustine's sterner mood permit any occupation with the beauti- 
ful. Thus, we should not "uselessly and in vain," not with 
"idle and passing curiosity," view "the beauty of the canopy of 
heaven, the order of the stars, the splendour of the light, the 



226 CHRISTIANITY 

alternation of day and night, the monthly revolutions of the 
moon, the seasons corresponding to the four elements, the power 
of the seed to bring forth form and fixed relations" — but in 
order to ascend from such transitory phenomena to immutable 
and eternal truth, to God. 

Accordingly, all relations of form have value for Augustine 
only in so far as they conduct us to the regulating thought of 
God. Moreover, in its preoccupation with nature, the work of 
God, his estimate of beauty overlooks, indeed rejects, art, the 
work of man. With a meaning similar to Plato's, but in still 
more vehement language, he shows how art, particularly dra- 
matic art, arouses in man conflicting emotions, and allows him in 
some marvellous manner to extract pleasure from a painful ex- 
citement of the feelings. Furthermore, an aesthetic cast of life is 
precluded by Augustine's violent dislike of the formal culture 
which dominated the closing period of antiquity. He ridiculed 
stirring up the emotions over distant and alien things, such as 
the fate of Dido, as the customary literary training required; he 
flew into a passion over scholars who, in the bitterness of their 
strife over the pronunciation of the word "man" {homo), forgot 
what man owes to his fellow-men. But with all his professed 
hostility to formal culture, Augustine remains a master of ex- 
position, a supreme artist in the use of words; above all, his 
diction possesses in the power and delicacy of its pervading 
emotional tone an enchanting musical sonorousness; in the 
hands of no one else has the Latin tongue become so completely 
the receptacle of purely inward life. 

Thus arises a thoroughly distinctive system of life, entirely 
dominated, even in its several parts, by religion, and supplying 
the basis of the culture of the Middle Ages. The elements of its 
greatness no less than its peculiar dangers are plainly visible. 
Life can here withdraw to a point where it is protected from any 
entanglement in the work of the world, and is sure of relation- 
ship with the eternal verities; on the contrary, civilisation loses 
all independent value. Practical, scientific, and artistic activity 
is here unable to keep man within its sphere; he is impelled be- 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 227 

yond it to religion ; he longs to reach with all possible speed the 
point where arduous labour is exchanged for an adoration of 
eternal love and omnipotence. To find in this a secure repose, 
beyond the world, and not to be drawn back by anything into 
the sphere of doubt and suffering, is the prayer which swallows 
up every other desire. Such a longing for re^t and peace is fully 
intelligible in view of the miserable condition of the age; and 
we saw, also, how Augustine's personality remained bound by 
strong fetters to the civilisation of his time. But the course of 
history necessarily brought whatever was doubtful to full frui- 
tion; and it has cost untold trouble to restore the equilibrium 
of values. 

(d) The History oj the World and Christianity 

Up to this point it has been the universal idea of religion, the 
inner relation of man to the perfect Spirit, which we have seen 
occupying Augustine's thoughts; the peculiar characteristics of 
historical Christianity remained in the background. But these 
emerge with distinctness so soon as attention is directed to the 
actual state of the world and to the facts of history. Even here 
Augustine is interested at bottom only in the relation to God; 
but whoever takes such a large view of religion will also have 
revealed to him a characteristic view of the world. In the first 
place, there is here a union of Christian and Neo- Platonic fea- 
tures. The world is apprehended, with perfect decisiveness, not 
as a necessary emanation of primordial being, but as a product 
of a free act: God created it, not from His own need, but out 
of the abundance of His own goodness (ex plenitudine bonitatis). 
He created everything Himself, not, as the Neo-Platonists be- 
lieved, through the aid of subordinate gods; accordingly, to 
Him alone adoration and gratitude are due. But the world 
which He created is not something indifferent in character, as 
might be supposed from the views of the earlier Church Fath- 
ers; rather, in it are revealed God's entire fulness and glory; it 
constitutes a communication and a presentation of His whole 



228 CHRISTIANITY 

being. Moreover, the world is no mere succession of detached 
things, but a single order, a closely united whole. Furthermore, 
this sensuous existence does not constitute the whole world; 
rather, it rests upon an invisible order which preceded it, and 
which continues to be its life-giving cause. What takes place in 
the human sphere is not to be explained by the external coexis- 
tence of things, but only by the action of inner forces; everything 
is miraculous; miraculous, in particular, are the everyday oc- 
currences, e. g., the issuing of a new being from the seed; habit 
has simply blunted our perception. A miracle is not something 
arbitrary and contrary to nature, but takes place according to a 
deeper nature and law; there is no such thing as chance; we 
merely call a thing accidental when its causes are concealed 
from us. Likewise, the succession of events is inwardly con- 
catenated; the earlier event contains the later, the "seeds of 
seeds" lay in the beginnings of the world's creation; to be sure, 
particular places and times brought about their development, 
but these were only the occasions, not the efficient causes. Thus 
the world may be likened to a gigantic tree, whose roots con- 
tain in invisible capacities (vi potentiaque causali) all the later 
growth; the progress of the world-process is just as marvellous 
as all growth from the seed. A further reason why all diversity 
has a fixed order is the fact that God, the perfect Being, has be- 
stowed on created things a graduated being, so that their totality 
forms an unbroken chain. 

Thus the world, as a representation of the Divine Being, be- 
comes vaster, more coherent, more inward. So much the more 
painful is the fact of all-pervading evil. From the outset this 
fact weighed with terrible force upon the mind of our thinker; 
but religious speculation, which found a basis for all things in 
God, only increased the burden. Moreover, with his perplexed 
reflection upon the problem, the subtility of Augustine's sensu- 
ousness displays itself in a very offensive manner. In his pres- 
entation, evil appears to rule in the physical world, and to 
resist the good, as if it had an independent nature, as the Man- 
ichseans taught. Following this assumption, Augustine finds sin 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 229 

chiefly in the sexual sphere, and defends the opinion " that sex- 
ual pleasure is sin, and that original sin is to be explained from 
procreation as the propagation of a natura vitiata" (Harnack). 
By spinning out this view in an unedifying manner, the thoughts 
of the Christian community were directed to unclean things, 
and their imaginations poisoned. At the same time, the grasp 
of the nature of evil is very superficial. No one is more to blame 
than Augustine for the fact that an element of Manichaeism 
was grafted upon Christianity, and continues to this day to 
cling to it. 

But this is only one trait in a nature full of contrasts, and even 
here valuable thoughts are interspersed with what is doubtful in 
sentiment. In evil Augustine sees not merely scattered events in 
so many individuals, but an all-pervading phenomenon, a great 
stream of life; through Adam all peoples were involved in sin, 
the whole of humanity fell away from God, and came under the 
power of the devil. Encompassed by such a total state of cor- 
ruption, the individual is wholly powerless; he cannot avoid sin, 
since his capacity for good is extinguished, and all progress 
by his own initiative excluded. It is further of no avail to appeal 
to free-will; for, in order to will the good, we must be good, and 
good we are not. 

Nevertheless, it is impossible to surrender the conviction that 
the world as the work of the perfect Spirit is good; in the end 
evil must serve the good. "If it were not good that there should 
be evil, evil would in no wise have been permitted by omnipo- 
tent Goodness." But how to solve the direct contradiction of 
religious conviction and immediate experience, and to solve it 
not only for faith but also for the scientific consciousness ? Au- 
gustine is compelled to summon all his power; he has, in fact, 
united all the resources of his mind in a supreme effort. 

The first step in the solution is found in the ancient Greek 
conviction, so energetically defended by the Neo-Platonists, that 
evil has no independent nature, no reality of its own, but merely 
adheres to another being; that it is nothing but an obstruction 
and privation of the good; "whatever injures, robs the thing it 



230 CHRISTIANITY 

injures of a good; for if it abstracts no good, it does no injury 
at all." One can lose only what one possesses; only he who has 
sight, e. g., can become blind; the higher in rank anything is, 
the more it possesses, the greater is the loss which it can sus- 
tain. According to this point of view, misery itself is a witness 
to the greatness of the original good; since this good springs 
from God, it cannot in the end be lost. By such a course of 
thought, Augustine finds in every sort of effort, even in the worst 
misconduct, the expression of a desire for the true and the good ; 
we commonly seek happiness and bliss by the wrong paths, but 
happiness and bliss are what we seek. 

But how is the existence of any sort of diminished good, or of 
any diminution of excellencies, compatible with the activity of 
omnipotent Goodness ? In order to make that evident, the above 
metaphysical argument is supplemented by an aesthetic con- 
sideration. The world is to be comprehended, not by its several 
parts, but as a whole; whoever looks upon its multiplicity piece- 
meal will perceive defects everywhere. In particular, let not 
the judgment of the world be influenced by the weal or woe of 
man; "considered, not according to human advantage or dis- 
advantage, but in itself, nature reflects honour upon its Crea- 
tor." What in itself seems unreasonable will become clear when 
seen from the stand-point of the whole, just as the unity of a 
painting makes even the black in it beautiful, or, as in a musical 
composition, the discords serve the harmony of the whole. 
Indeed, the highest beauty may reveal itself in the very com- 
passing and reconciling of contrasts. Hence, the harsh discord 
of a first impression is compatible with faith in the perfect har- 
mony of a deeper view. 

The point, however, in which the world shows itself to be a 
whole, is not found in the world but above it, in the Divine Being. 
It is particularly the moral aspect of the idea of God which con- 
tributes the reconciling conclusion : thus a Christian superstruc- 
ture is added to the Greek foundation. The evil of the world 
loses its irrationality when viewed as an indispensable means to 
the manifestation of the moral perfection of God. Such a mani- 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 231 

festation must accomplish two things : on the one hand, the stern 
reality of the moral order and its judicial character must be 
shown; on the other, the merciful goodness of God. The 
former object is attained, if a part of mankind, i. e., the great 
majority (for all by their sins have fallen under condemnation), 
are abandoned to their merited punishment; while the second 
aim is fulfilled, if the other part, without any desert of its own, 
finds salvation through grace alone. For the principle of the 
sole activity of God requires that the election to blessedness or 
perdition be not determined by any distinction in performance, 
but exclusively by the divine pleasure, by the not otherwise con- 
ditioned will of divine omnipotence. To assign any co-operation 
to human freedom would be to diminish the divine work. Thus 
freedom, so greatly prized by early Christianity, is sacrificed to 
the unconditional dependence of man upon God (although, as 
will appear later, only in this one line of thought). The good, it 
is here maintained, is not the work of man but of God: "what 
is done by thee, is done by God working in thee." 

Hence, in the order of the world as a whole, there are united 
mercy and justice, gentleness and severity; and these form a 
complete harmony when seen from the divine point of view. If 
this harmony cannot be depicted without a defect, there is good 
ground to admit one; "God deemed it better to do good with 
evil, rather than not to permit evil at all." Accordingly, the 
world is "beautiful even with its sinners"; even the eternal 
damnation of the lost belongs to the perfection of the whole. 

Here we have a heroic effort to find a theocentric solution 
of the problem of evil. The attempt is made under the ostensible 
leadership of morals, but actually under the dominance of artis- 
tic conceptions, or, as it may also be expressed, under an artistic 
construction of the moral idea. For the above view of the 
world-process as a manifestation of the Divine Being, the sepa- 
ration of the qualities "goodness" and 'justice," and the effort 
for symmetry and order are all artistic. In truth, in this at- 
tempt, Augustine is continuing the speculation of Plato much 
more than he is developing a Christian belief. 



232 CHRISTIANITY 

The chief difficulty with this treatment of the world and of 
evil is one which is common to the whole supernatural tendency 
of the age. It assigns reality to God alone, and at the same time 
struggles against the consequent resolution of the world into mere 
appearance; it affirms a world apart from God, and finds all the 
reality of this world in God. Hence, two parallel lines of 
thought persist, unreconciled ; or rather, a divine and a human, an 
eternal and a temporal, view of things dovetail into each other. 
In its rigid austerity, Augustine's doctrine has an element of su- 
preme greatness, so long as it is concerned solely with God, and 
incorporates the human estate into the divine life as an unsub- 
stantial element. But it is impossible for those who bear the 
heat and burden of the day thus completely to eliminate the hu- 
man point of view and human feeling; and so soon as these gain 
ground, they draw the eternal into the temporal sphere. As a 
consequence, the harshness of the picture becomes unendurable. 
God could save all men; but, in order to develop all sides of 
His being equally, He has not done it; on the contrary, He has 
hopelessly damned the great majority for all eternity, without 
these lost souls having sinned one whit more than those elected 
to eternal blessedness. Augustine continually talks, indeed, of 
free grace, but in reality he closely approximates an arbitrary 
despotism; he extols mystery, and with difficulty avoids degen- 
erating into sheer irrationality. Finally, nothing remains but to 
point to the Beyond, where all enigmas will be solved. 

Furthermore, salvation or damnation is here in every respect 
definitely "predetermined" by the eternal divine decree, and the 
whole course of the world completely settled ; whatever he does 
or leaves undone, man can alter nothing, his rdle in life is mi- 
nutely prescribed for him. The inevitable result was the destruc- 
tion of all incentive and all interest in life. For the utmost ex- 
ertions of the damned can avail nothing, nor can the shortcom- 
ings of the elect do them any injury; nothing remains but the 
torment of uncertainty as to where one belongs. 

But, however great the power which this line of thought ex- 
erted over Augustine, and however indomitable the energy with 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 233 

which he pursued it to the end, again we have before us but one 
side of the man ; in his own immediate feeling, and so far as his 
position in the life of the Church was concerned, quite another 
estimate triumphed. Augustine, in fact, now forces the above 
line of thought into abeyance, and, without more ado, adopts 
the temporal view of things, making the eternal order merely 
the background of historical development. Here it appears as 
though things were still plastic, as if grace could and must still 
be shown to man, as if it were possible, even now, and of one's 
own accord, to make the great decision. Freedom, too, is once 
more admitted. In order to solve the problem, the individual 
seems to require only assistance and relationship with the whole; 
it is expressly declared that the mercy of God is not of itself suf- 
ficient, that the will of man is also necessary. Hence a wide 
chasm separates Augustine's speculative and practical treatment 
of life. 

These antitheses extend also to his treatment of Christianity. 
For pure speculation, Christianity means the supra-historical 
triumph of the eternal God over the revolt of evil, it means a 
manifestation of the divine capacities in their higher power. 
But the further treatment does full justice to historical Chris- 
tianity, including the work of salvation and the personality of 
Jesus. Here, too, Augustine's sense for what is great and uni- 
versal discerns in Christianity more than a single phenomenon 
in the course of history; "what we now call the Christian re- 
ligion existed also among the ancients, and was not wanting from 
the beginning of the human race to the time when Christ came 
in the flesh. But since His coming, the already existing true 
religion began to be called the Christian religion." At the same 
time Augustine declared that the entrance of the Divine into 
history, as a visible Presence, constitutes the peculiar greatness 
of Christianity; by that fact it can help the whole human race to 
obtain salvation, whereas the influence of philosophy, which can 
avail itself only of the non-temporal action of universal reason, is 
restricted to a few. Christ was sent to free the world from the 
world. By His suffering and triumph the power of evil over us, 



234 CHRISTIANITY 

established through the Fall, is broken, the solemn compact 
destroyed which testified against us, and man once more enabled 
to draw near to God. 

Convictions such as these Augustine can express broadly 
without entering upon the peculiar characteristics of the person- 
ality and life of Jesus. But wherever his innermost feeling finds 
full and free utterance, it testifies to the deepest impression of 
this personality. Great above all is the humility in the majesty 
as well as the complete inversion of the natural estimate of 
things; "none of his conceptions in relation to Christ is more 
pronounced than that Christ has ennobled the things before 
which we shuddered (shame, suffering, pain, and death), and 
robbed of their worth the things we desired (namely, to obtain 
justice, to be esteemed, and to enjoy)" (Harnack). 

At the same time, Augustine developed a philosophy of his- 
tory with Christianity as its central point. Humanity has the 
same periods of life as the individual; the acme of manly vigour 
corresponds to the advent of Christ; after that, old age began. 
For while it is indeed true that Christ established a kingdom of 
imperishable youth, such youth belongs to another order of 
things than the earthly. Hence the earthly sphere is not the chief 
arena of effort; nor is there any longing to accomplish the ut- 
most possible here, to give a rational form to the whole extent of 
mundane things; on the contrary, all external conditions are 
indifferent as compared with the inner state and with spiritual 
goods. This ascetic tendency paralyses all effort for social re- 
form; e. g., slavery is allowed to remain undisturbed, although 
it originated in the Fall, and slave and master are equal before 
God. For "the good man is free even when he serves another, 
while the evil man is a slave even when he rules." 

Just as Augustine will not devote his powers to earthly things, 
so his affections refuse to be fixed upon this life, to find here 
their home. It is true that here and there appear rudiments of 
an attempt to uplift this finite existence by the immediate pres- 
ence of the Divine, and to triumph over this world, not by with- 
drawing from it, but by inwardly transforming it. Augustine 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 235 

regards it as wrong to take the expression "world" always in a 
bad sense; to him it seems nobler to possess earthly things with- 
out depending upon them than altogether to renounce them. 
At times, prohibitions appear to be given only because men as 
we actually find them are incapable of self-control. The pious 
man is not miserable even in this life of trial; for he can always 
withdraw from the sphere of suffering to a life with God, to a 
fellowship with divine love, which bestows peace and joy upon 
his innermost soul. 

Nevertheless, the deep consciousness of the burden of suffer- 
ing, waywardness, and guilt, the strong sense of the uncertainty 
and imperfection of human existence, do not permit of any com- 
plete satisfaction here below; true and perfect happiness still 
belong to the Beyond. There alone can we find peace and 
blessed vision, while here we merely work and hope; this life is 
a mere preparation, a pilgrimage in a foreign land, an abode of 
temptation; indeed, in comparison with the next life it is death. 
Hence, the earthly life has worth only in view of the life to come. 
For it serves as an education for the latter; and, amid all trials 
and griefs, it holds the certainty of a better future. In truth, 
when our thoughts ascend to it in anticipation, all the obscurity 
which now surrounds us seems to be but a thin veil that will 
soon fall; as compared with the glory of the perfect life, all the 
suffering of the present fades into a mere dream. We are only 
seemingly sad, for our sadness shall pass away even as a sleep, 
and in the morning the good shall reign. But as to immortality, 
there is here not the slightest doubt, for the essence of life is de- 
cisively transferred from the visible to the invisible, from time 
to eternity, from man to God; whoever loves God with the 
whole heart is perfectly secure, in that love, of personal inde- 
structibility. For "such a one knows that nothing will perish 
for him that does not perish for God. God, however, is the 
Lord of the living and the dead." 

The thought, however, of future destiny, and not personal 
destiny alone, but the destiny of kindred, becomes a powerful 
incentive to ceaseless toil in the present. Especially effective in 



236 CHRISTIANITY 

this regard is the doctrine of purgatory, a middle state between 
bliss and damnation, particularly in conjunction with the belief 
that the petitions and deeds of the living can moderate the suf- 
ferings of those in purgatory. The elaboration of such a doctrine 
reveals Augustine's minute knowledge of the motives and weak- 
nesses of the human heart. 

Such a concentration of attention upon the Beyond stamps 
all joy in the goods of this life as wrong. The possession of 
worldly goods is, therefore, regarded as a hindrance to the moral 
life and to consecration to God. Here the ideal of asceticism 
appears in full strength; private property is looked upon as a 
chief source of the world's misery; whoever altogether relin- 
quishes its possession surpasses him who only surrenders the 
love of it. Celibacy becomes a higher state than matrimony; 
even the extinction of the human race as a consequence of uni- 
versal celibacy would be greeted by Augustine with joy. Hence 
affection, like hope, in the end attaches itself wholly to the Be- 
yond. 

(e) The Church 

So far, two spheres of thought have been introduced by Augus- 
tine, the universal religious sphere and the Christian; besides 
these, however, there is a third realm which calls forth his efforts 
and often appears to monopolise them, namely, the life of the 
Church, the visible religious community fully equipped with 
fixed ordinances. Two chief motives impelled Augustine to 
take up and vigorously to perfect all that the Latins had ac- 
complished by way of strengthening ecclesiastical power and 
authority: its utility for the masses, and its necessity for his 
own inconstant mind. His early writings in particular give very 
frank expression to considerations of expediency. In common 
with the other Church Fathers, Augustine sees the chief supe- 
riority of Christianity in the fact that it offers salvation, not to 
some few, but to the whole of mankind. If, at the same time, 
there exists a deep distrust of the capacity of individuals, and 
the ancient idea of a permanent separation of humanity into an 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 237 

intelligent minority and an unintelligent majority prevails, then 
authority and faith become indispensable; the cultivated man 
does not need these for himself, but even he must submit to them 
in order not to shake the faith of the masses by availing himself 
of his freedom; "even if such do themselves no harm, they will 
harm others by their example." Here the Church appears as an 
institution for the education and disciplining of the masses; 
faith, i. e., submission to the teaching of the Church, is recom- 
mended on the ground of certainty, indeed, of convenience ! Far 
more forcibly, however, than by such reasons of utility, Augus- 
tine is impelled by his own restless nature, which is torn by con- 
tradictions, to seek a firm support inaccessible to doubt. Plainly, 
all the soaring of speculation did not insure him against harass- 
ing doubts; in spite of his intellectual power he possessed the 
nature of a Thomas, who must touch and grasp whatever he is 
to recognise as true, and who does not accept the reality of spir- 
itual entities, unless some material embodiment brings them di- 
rectly before the eyes. Hence, he clings with his whole soul to 
the Church as an indispensable support, and confesses for him- 
self, "I would not believe in the Gospel were I not constrained 
by the authority of the Catholic Church." 

For such a line of thought, the central conception of the intel- 
lectual and religious life becomes the Church, the fellowship of 
the new life, the institution dispensing pardon, through which 
alone the divine love, and with it a new life, is imparted to 
man, particularly by means of the sacraments. Here alone is 
salvation accessible, here alone are sins forgiven, here alone is 
there the possibility of a moral life. For the individual, accord- 
ingly, there is no salvation without submission to the doctrine 
and the life of the Church. "Without a strong rule of authority 
(sine quodam gravi auctoritatis imperio) the true religion cannot 
subsist." 

It is the Church as a visible order, as an established institu- 
tion, that first wins Augustine's veneration. But he could not 
justify such an estimate, even to himself, did not the visible 
organisation assume spiritual powers, were it not, also, in spite 



238 CHRISTIANITY 

of its independence, a member of wider relationships. Such, 
however, it becomes in fact; without surrendering its own 
nature, the temporal and visible acquires the qualities of a 
higher order and derives therefrom a deeper content, a greater 
power, an unspeakable sanctity; whatever is drawn from this 
source enriches and elevates the visible, so that visible and in- 
visible merge into a single whole of life. The sphere of the 
Church here appears wholly to absorb that of religion and that of 
the Christian life; and since everything rational in life is here 
connected with religion, there is absolutely nothing good outside 
the Church: without the Catholic Church no Christianity; with- 
out Christianity no religion; without religion no rational life. 
Accordingly, the attitude toward the Church determines in the 
end the worth and blessedness of man. 

This blending of the sensible and the spiritual, the temporal 
and the eternal, was not accomplished abruptly with Augustine; 
he was brought to it by the whole development of the earlier 
Church. Yet the movement now assumes large dimensions and 
unfolds its full strength ; with this expansion, Augustine becomes 
the founder of mediaeval Catholicism. 

The importance of the above fusion, no less than its historical 
necessity, is obvious. Through it, life secures a firm basis and 
conduct a tangible aim ; all forces are united in the accomplish- 
ment of a single task. Inasmuch as the visible acquires invisible 
powers, the temporal directly communicates the eternal, not as 
its mere symbol, but as inseparably united with it in growth, as 
inseparably confluent with it; the interest in what takes place 
among us and through us infinitely increases; man here knows 
that he is securely sheltered in divine relationships, and that no 
part of his conduct is lost. The fundamental conception of 
Christianity, that of the union of the Divine and the human 
(which are usually separated), of the entrance of the Eternal 
into time, is here carried out in a highly effective, although 
assailable, form, and one which was peculiarly suitable to the 
historical conditions. For how could Christianity, at the time 
of the migrations and the formation of new nations, have 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 239 

wrought and ruled in any other form than this ? Nothing, how- 
ever, distinguishes Augustine more widely from Plotinus, and 
also from the fathers of the Greek Church, than this prominence 
of the religious community and its history, this acquired inde- 
pendence of a temporal conception and order of things. 

But the importance and real power of this development in- 
volve at the same time serious complications. The uniting of 
the eternal and invisible with a particular historical institution 
results in the danger of circumscribing and crystallising, as well 
as externalising, the spiritual content; the danger of limiting 
eternal truths to transitory forms, and inner aims to outward 
performances. It is possible, indeed unavoidable, that a harsh 
exclusivism and a passionate fanaticism should arise when those 
who have no share in this visible community and do not meet its 
requirements lose all connection with the kingdom of God, in 
fact with the rational life. Moreover, the question suggests 
itself whether Augustine did not merely decree instead of prove 
the unity of these two spheres, whether the conceptions are not 
rather externally conjoined than really united. As a matter of 
fact, all the chief concepts have here a double sense. Chris- 
tianity is now the eternal revelation of God, pervading all time, 
now a particular, limited, historical order; the Church now the 
invisible communion of the elect of God, now a visible organisa- 
tion with a human head; faith now the humble dedication of 
the whole being to divine truth, now the mere acceptance of the 
teaching of the Church without personal examination; the 
miraculous now the evidence of supernatural powers in all 
events, now an occasional interruption of the course of nature, 
i. e., of the habit of divine action. To bring this equivocal use 
of terms distinctly into view would mean to shatter one of the 
pillars of the Augustinian system and of the mediaeval order. 

But while Augustine confines all the spiritual life of the com- 
munity to the Church, he at the same time does his utmost to 
give life within the Church a rich content. A mystic fundamental 
conception, an intimate feeling, a sober practical activity, here 
reciprocally aid and support one another. It was inevitable that 



240 CHRISTIANITY 

Augustine, who thought so meanly of man, and felt so keenly the 
moral defects of his age, should make the substance of this life 
independent of the characteristics of individual persons. Thus 
he developed the doctrine of the sanctity of the priestly office 
(sact -amentum ordinis), and contended that the priest as priest 
possessed a peculiar "character," independent of the qualities 
of the individual. 

Just as the Church provides its members with all the goods of 
the Christian life, so in particular it strengthens love, which in 
Augustine's view forms the essence of the Christian life. If we 
ask whether any one is a good man, we do not ask what he be- 
lieves and what he hopes, but what he loves; the soul is present 
rather where it loves than where it lives; it becomes what it loves ; 
not faith and hope, but love, reaches above life to the Beyond. 
Love, which is imparted to us by God, especially by means of 
the sacraments, enhances and ennobles all the virtues. Love, 
however, ought not to remain a mere matter of disposition, but 
should assume definite forms of expression and incorporate it- 
self in visible works. Virtue becomes in this way the "order of 
love"; works, even in the sense of a tangible achievement, are 
indispensable, since man as a member of the community must 
also give practical proof of his disposition. The requisite works 
are: in the case of religion, participating in the ordinances of 
the Church, especially the sacraments; in the case of moral 
conduct, the showing of mercy, and the care of the poor and the 
unfortunate. Augustine does not restrict himself here to the 
welfare of individuals, but magnifies the beneficent effect of 
Christianity and of the Church upon the total condition of so- 
ciety; to wit, the improvement of the relations of master and 
slave; the promotion of the brotherhood of classes, of nations, 
and of all mankind, and the establishment of inner bonds of 
union between rulers and peoples. 

In this education of the race, the ultimate thought of the 
Church is always the Beyond; an other-worldly sentiment fills 
the minds of her servants. But the Church cannot in this world 
prepare for the next, without also exercising authority over 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 241 

the world, without subjecting to itself all other powers; not 
from the love of temporal power — for her own inclination would 
lead the Church to withdraw wholly from the world — but from 
solicitude for the salvation of the whole of humanity. But, not- 
withstanding all the effort to maintain such a height, the danger 
is almost unavoidable that the earthly will confine the spiritual 
to its own limits, and by involving it in temporal affairs, draw 
it down to their level. Not only may the individual easily fall 
a prey to the lust of power, but the conduct of the Church also 
may closely approximate to the character of secular politics. In 
an evil world, the state of which, according to Augustine, can 
never be materially improved, the Church could accomplish 
nothing without taking account of actual conditions. Hence, 
whether good or bad, she must come to terms with those condi- 
tions; she must and may tolerate (tolerare) many things which 
of herself she would wish otherwise. Thus the Church also be- 
comes more and more an empire of this world; and amid the 
cares of her temporal power her religious character is in danger 
of becoming weakened and her ideals of being lowered. 

Such a church cannot possibly regard the state as possessing 
equal rights and privileges. The peculiar circumstances of an age 
in which the state had already become Christian, while the idea 
of the ancient state continued to exert a potent influence, were re- 
flected in Augustine's mind by a qualified judgment; the state, 
namely, must be sternly repulsed when it opposes the Church, 
or seeks to usurp her place; but within its limited sphere it is to 
be prized, if it acknowledges and furthers the higher aims of the 
Church. Under the former circumstances, a passionate hatred 
of the state develops which is almost without a parallel in his- 
tory. The earthly and the heavenly kingdoms are diametrically 
opposed, and the development of their opposition runs through- 
out the whole course of history; the former springs from self- 
love carried to the extreme of contempt for God, the latter from 
love of God carried to the point of contempt for self. Cain and 
Abel appear as their respective founders. Of Cain we are told, 
"he founded the state" (condidif civitatem); the secular state 



242 CHRISTIANITY 

traces its origin, therefore, to a fratricide! The Christianised 
state meets with more approbation; it has a task of its own 
assigned to it, one which is aside from that of the Church, since 
the requirements of life demand an organisation common to be- 
lievers and unbelievers. In particular, the state has to maintain 
order and peace; the Church herself offers no objection to obey- 
ing civil laws in temporal matters. Augustine concedes to the 
state so much independence in this direction, that in the medi- 
aeval conflicts the friends of the state were able to appeal to his 
authority. But this recognition of the state is confined to sec- 
ular things; eternal salvation and spiritual goods are in the sole 
charge of the Church, on which rests the responsibility for the 
education and culture of mankind. To the latter alone, there- 
fore, belongs the devotion of the inner man. 

It is much the same with the nation and the fatherland. The 
Church pursues upon earth her heavenly aims undisturbed by 
the discrepancies in customs, laws, and methods of organisation; 
whatever among different nations serves in various ways the 
ends of earthly peace she does not disturb, rather she upholds it 
and conforms herself to it, so long as it forms no obstacle to true 
religion. But the spiritual task remains untouched by the life 
of the nation; only in the lower sphere of mundane existence is 
the nation tolerated as something of natural origin. Personally, 
moreover, Augustine possessed no patriotism; his fatherland 
was Christianity. Hence, here, all life outside the Church 
touches the Christian only from without, and as something alien. 

Associated with the complications arising from the conflict 
with the world are dangers in the inner life of a church which 
knows nothing divine beyond its own ordinances. It possesses 
no freedom for individuals, no inner constraint by a truth pres- 
ent in the depths of a man's soul. All dissent and separation 
are regarded as the result of a depraved will, of an arrogant pre- 
sumption; the unbeliever (infidelis) — no one has done more 
than Augustine to bring this name into contempt and dishonour 
— is one who will not believe the divine Word; a heretic, one 
"who, for the sake of a temporal advantage and particularly his 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 243 

own fame and distinction, either proposes or accepts false new 
opinions." When, in addition, such wilful dissent, being a 
menace to constituted authority, does injury to the community, 
then violent hatred darts forth, and there is a burning desire for 
the extermination of the evil, root and branch. Scarcely any- 
where else does Augustine's passion break forth with such wild 
impetuosity as here where the whole fervour of religious desire 
is concentrated upon the ecclesiastical system; to be sure, 
Christian love also is to remain intact, inasmuch as the con- 
straint operates for the salvation of those affected ; yet this love 
and solicitude after all possess the character of compulsion : one 
should compel those who nominally belong to Christianity to 
accept it (compelle intrare), and force goodness upon such as are 
enemies of themselves. " Destroy false doctrines, but love 
men," is the phrase; and God is besought "Mayest Thou put 
to death the enemies of the Holy Scriptures with a two-edged 
sword, and make them to cease their hostility to Thee. For so 
I wish them destroyed, that they may live in Thee." Thus, with 
evident self-deception, Augustine's feelings become marvellously 
confounded; transplanted to the soil of the Church, all the 
lower emotions threaten to spring into life again, and even the 
most fanatical hatred to put on the cloak of Christian love. It 
is, indeed, a rank soil for the production of religious persecu- 
tions, inquisitions, and heresy trials — those saddest outgrowths 
of Christianity. 

In a similar way the substance of morality was injured by 
the omnipotence of the Church and of ecclesiastical interests. 
Morality, in consequence, appears not as an independent realm 
possessing intrinsic worth, but as a sum of religious ordinances, 
or, since religion is here identical with the Church, of ecclesias- 
tical rules. Hence, there is morally good conduct in the strict 
sense only within the Catholic Church ; even the sublimest works 
of self-sacrificing love and renunciation are not of the slightest 
avail for those who are not Catholics; in fact, such deeds, being 
without the pale of the Church, are not good deeds at all. 

Moreover, this dependence of morality upon the ecclesiastical 



244 CHRISTIANITY 

organisation unavoidably subjected it to all the flux and change 
of time. That alterations in the rules of life take place in the 
course of history was evident to Augustine's age above all from 
the difference between the Old and the New Testament; the 
change is most marked in the progress from polygamy, which 
was originally permitted, through monogamy to chastity, which, 
although not required, was yet desired. In such changes, 
Augustine thought that it is not the opinions of men but the 
moral law itself that alters; what was earlier allowed later 
comes to be forbidden. 

Owing to the relativity of morals, it is possible for acts to be- 
come obligatory which are in direct contradiction with univer- 
sal moral laws, provided it is indisputable that a divine com- 
mand requires them to be performed. Like the laws of nature, 
moral laws also become mere rules, which can be broken at any 
time in the interests of religion. The danger of this develop- 
ment is felt by Augustine himself; hence, he demands the most 
rigorous proofs that any exceptional command really comes from 
God; he is, therefore, cautious in his application of the rule to 
individual instances, more cautious than other Church Fathers 
of his time. Still, his elevation of it into a principle contributed 
largely toward the destruction of the independence of morals 
and the subordination of moral to ecclesiastical interests. 

In all this we see the ecclesiastical system expand without 
limit; we see it enslave religion, shape intellectual life in accord- 
ance with its own ends, and crush its opponents. In the case of 
Augustine himself, however, authority and ecclesiastical power 
are merged in the most powerful personal forces; personality, 
with its immediate relation to God, remains the animating soul 
of the whole. From the life with God, as this not only strives 
toward mystical absorption in the deepest ground of all being, 
but also develops through personal intercourse an ethical com- 
munity, there flow unceasingly into the ecclesiastical organisa- 
tion strength, warmth, and inwardness, which prevent it from 
sinking into a soulless mechanism of ceremonial observances 
and legalism. Authority itself is not operative here as an in- 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 245 

flexible fact and by the mere weight of its existence; rather, 
an inner need, a compelling personal demand for happiness and 
for a firm support, force men to seek it and maintain it. From 
these life-giving depths the ecclesiastical system derives in great 
part that vast power over the minds of men which it has exer- 
cised even down to the present time. But can all the magnitude 
of the achievement conceal the contradiction involved in the 
fact that man is raised to such a spontaneous, independent, 
and transforming personal life, and also required to submit him- 
self unconditionally to the ecclesiastical system? For the time 
being, the contradiction was obscured; but in the end men in- 
evitably became aware of it, and were led into new paths. 

(f) Retrospect 

It is not necessary to encumber our lengthy review of Augus- 
tine with comprehensive reflections. It will suffice briefly to 
remind ourselves how much the whole has exhibited at once the 
riches and the immaturity of Augustine's activity and nature. 
We saw three spheres of life, that of universal religion, that of 
Christianity, and that of the Church, unfold themselves into 
great realms, appropriate the whole of reality, and give to hu- 
man existence a peculiar form. Partly combining and inter- 
penetrating, partly intersecting and inwardly conflicting, these 
three spheres of reality produce an unlimited breadth and ful- 
ness of life, and at the same time the most stubborn contradic- 
tions. The same thinker who, in shaking off ancient traditions, 
made the individual life of the soul the all-dominating central 
point of reality, has done more than any other to found a sys- 
tem of absolute authority; the man, to whom love became the 
soul of life, indeed the power by which God moves the world, 
kindled indescribable hatred by the exaggerated fanaticism he 
displayed toward those of other faiths; he who, by a regenerat- 
ing revolution accomplished a radical liberation of the spiritual 
and the moral from all natural conditions, fell a prey, in another 
direction, to a confusion of natural events and free human acts, 



246 CHRISTIANITY 

indeed, even to a crude materialising of the moral life. In par- 
ticular, moreover, his whole effort is pervaded by a contradic- 
tory treatment of the individual subject; at one time the latter is 
summoned to the boldest activity, and, confident of victory, 
feels itself superior to all existence; at another, overcome with 
distressing doubts as to its own capacities, and passionately 
longing for some secure support, it obediently submits itself to 
an external authority. 

The most serious thing about Augustine's nature, which is as 
transparent in certain directions as it is unintelligible as a 
whole, is the difference of its spiritual, and particularly moral, 
levels; there is no other great thinker in whom the heights and 
depths lie so far apart. On the one hand, there is a marvellous 
warmth of affection, the deepest sympathy for every sort of 
human destiny, a power to vitalise the best and noblest in man, 
a capacity to act as the vehicle of divine power; on the other, 
the impetuous clamouring for happiness, so defenceless against 
intrusions of the lower impulses, consumes all aspiration and, 
particularly where the eminent logical abilities of the man are 
pressed into its service, and the sensibility is blunted against 
every contradiction of immediate feeling, brings forth the most 
ghastly products. That repulsive fusion of glowing passion 
with cold, relentless consistency, which often characterises later 
religious conflicts, begins with Augustine. 

But that which was a defect in the thing itself became a source 
of strength to the result. The most diverse tendencies of the age 
found in Augustine not only a point of contact but an adequate, 
indeed a classical, interpretation; he is the most eloquent 
spokesman of its inmost intention. At the same time, each 
can here supplement itself by the others; and all disagreeable 
consequences may be averted by the ever-present possibility of 
new developments. Augustine, in fact, possesses a unique 
value for the comprehension of every kind of tendency, inas- 
much as in him all kinds show in the most distinct manner how 
they originate from the totality of human nature, and also reveal 
with the most transparent clearness their ultimate motives. In 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 247 

particular, it is here evident how deeply rooted in the spiritual 
needs of man the system of mediaeval Catholicism is, and how 
securely it is fortified by that fact against every assault either 
of rude force or of petty ridicule. 

To define Augustine's historical position is by no means easy. 
Obviously he forms the intellectual culmination of early Chris- 
tianity and dominates the Middle Ages. But later Christianity 
has constantly drawn from him, and the Reformation in its 
main theses appealed to his authority; indeed, it is scarcely a 
paradox to say that if the present generation means again to 
take up the fundamental problems of religion, and to take them 
up independently, it must go back for its historical orienta- 
tion, not to Schleiermacher or Kant, not to Luther or Thomas, 
but to Augustine, as the point where all later developments were 
in the formative stage, and where, accordingly, their justifica- 
tion or non-justification will be evident to critical examination. 
Moreover, aside from religion, the modern thinker will find 
many points of contact with Augustine, if only he penetrates 
beneath the often curious expression of the thought to the es- 
sence of the matter. In some respects Augustine, with his all- 
dominating subjectivity, stands nearer to us than Hegel and 
Schopenhauer. 

Nevertheless, we hesitate to follow the example of prominent 
scholars of our own day and call him outright a modern man. 
Undoubtedly, Augustine has much that is modern, above all 
in that ardent, penetrating subjectivity, and in that marvellous 
nature which embraced the harshest contradictions. But does 
that of itself make him a modern? In truth, there is wanting 
much that seems indispensable to the modern character. He 
knows nothing of a clear analysis of subject and object, nothing 
of a desire for a world of pure objectivity, of passionless truth, 
of disinterested work, such as pervades the modern world and 
counteracts all mere subjectivity; on the contrary, he swiftly 
universalises the subjective and gives it objectivity. Moreover, 
the direct and exclusive concentration of his thought and effort 
upon religion does not permit him to concern himself in the 



248 CHRISTIANITY 

affairs of the actual world, leaves no room for the ideal of the 
universal man in the sense of modern times. Finally, strongly 
marked traits of antiquity live on in him : from the classical age, 
namely, the cosmic speculation, the plastic moulding of reality, 
the distinction of an esoteric and an exoteric life; and from the 
closing period, the longing for a haven of rest secluded from all 
storms, for a finally settled decision to be enjoyed in secure 
peace, also the exaggeration of the opposition of the sensuous 
and the spiritual. In other respects — and the best — he merely 
followed his own genius, and in so doing develops an imper- 
ishable greatness. Hence, it is surely better not to place Augus- 
tine in any particular group or epoch, but to recognise in him 
one of the few personalities from whom later ages draw inspira- 
tion, and who serve as a lodestar in the solution of those eternal 
problems which transcend all ages. 

III. THE MIDDLE AGES 
(a) The Early Middle Ages 

Were it our task to speak of the general mediaeval view of 
life, instead of the views of life of mediaeval thinkers, a charac- 
teristic and attractive theme would await us; we might then 
look forward to a number of interesting distinctions and to 
much that would be valuable. So far as our special problem is 
concerned, however, a full thousand years offer nothing new. 
The views of life of the mediaeval thinkers borrow their ma- 
terial from earlier ages; such characteristic combinations as are 
presented rather serve to express the historical conditions than 
to contribute anything of permanent value. It is, accordingly, 
our privilege, indeed our duty, to epitomise. 

The first centuries of the Middle Ages chiefly follow Neo- 
Platonism in philosophy. In addition to the sources already 
mentioned, there are, by way of conclusion, two others: the 
treatise of Boethius (d. 525), on the consolation of philosophy 
(de consolatione philosophies), a philosophical devotional book 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 249 

for the cultivated, and the works of the Pseudo Dionysius (un- 
doubtedly of the fifth century). Boethius's De consolatione pos- 
sesses more refinement and distinction than strength and 
warmth. The thinker is filled with the worthlessness of every- 
thing earthly and sensuous; he rises to the. supersensuous es- 
sence and at the same time to the universal point of view; he 
finds solace in the thought that with such a change everything 
becomes rational and evil dissolves in mere appearance. 

Dionysius concerned himself more with the whole social 
order; his essentially Neo-Platonic wisdom was accepted by the 
Middle Ages as a revelation of the profoundest Christian truth, 
sanctioned by Apostolic authority. As the essence of Christian- 
ity, there appears here the Neo-Platonic idea of a going out and 
return of God to Himself; the world is nothing but an eternal 
cycle of divine love. The historical becomes a symbol of the 
eternal, the human a symbol of the cosmic and divine. The 
tone of life becomes dreamy and wistful; the Christianity of 
the Church is influenced in two important points. By trans- 
planting to ecclesiastical Christianity the Neo-Platonic concep- 
tion of an unbroken gradation of beings, a procession of life 
from higher to lower, the thought of an hierarchy surpassing that 
of Augustine is developed and established, first the heavenly, 
and then its likeness, the earthly, hierarchy. Further, by a phil- 
osophical development of a tendency of the. age, this system 
fused sensuous and supersensuous in such a way that the sen- 
suous appears now as a mere reflection of the spiritual, now as 
inseparably united with it; this had the result of conferring 
upon acts of worship, particularly the sacraments, the character 
of mysteries, and consequently of greatly increasing their im- 
portance. The two chief pillars of the mediaeval ecclesiastical 
system — the hierarchy and the sacraments — here plainly exhibit 
their ancient basis. 

As the means of introducing Dionysius in the Occident, we 
may mention particularly Scotus Erigena (ninth century). He 
manifests a fresher sense of life than is seen at the close of an- 
tiquity; and the grounding of all existence in God had the effect 



250 CHRISTIANITY 

of again making the world and nature more important, in fact, 
of preparing the way for a radical pantheism. The last conse- 
quences of this view, however, were not apparent until centuries 
later, and then its rejection by the Church was inevitable. 

Nowhere upon the soil of the Middle Ages proper is an in- 
tention manifest to lay violent hands upon the legacy of the past. 
Nevertheless, certain changes take place, owing to the fact that 
some elements of the inherited stock unfold more vigorously 
than the others, and thus alter slightly the aspect of the whole. 
These developments, however, are twofold, and take opposite 
directions: on the one hand, more intelligent insight is de- 
manded; on the other, more sympathetic appropriation. The 
former movement begins, in particular, with Anselm, of Can- 
terbury (1033-1109). He endeavours to find a theoretical basis 
for the truths of faith, not in order to make them more accept- 
able by demonstration, but only to analyse more clearly the 
acknowledged truth. But when fundamental questions, such 
as the existence of God and the Incarnation, once become mat- 
ters of theoretical discussion, the inevitable result is an inner 
change, a rationalising of the traditional doctrine. Moreover, 
the theoretical interest, once aroused, cannot always be so 
easily satisfied as it is with Anselm. 

In fact, it was intensified to the point of open conflict in the 
case of Abelard, the brilliant dialectician (1079-1142). In him 
the subjective tendency breaks forth with striking freedom and 
vigour; already there appears that freshness of feeling and flex- 
ibility of thought by which the French mind has done so much 
to clear away the rubbish of the past and to win for the present 
a life of its own. 

Abelard does not bow in awe and reverence before the tra- 
ditional doctrines of religion; he makes them an object of 
ceaseless reflection and discussion; he displays his dialectical 
power even upon the most difficult of the dogmas. In a highly 
noteworthy treatise he has a philosopher, a Jew, and a Chris- 
tian engage in an argument concerning ultimate questions, and 
find that they are much nearer to one another than at first ap- 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 251 

peared: he makes investigation, indeed doubt, honourable, in 
accordance with the view that "through doubt we come to in- 
vestigation, and through investigation to the truth"; he looks 
upon authority only as a provisional substitute for reason, and 
sharply criticises the many for calling that one firm in the faith 
who does not rise above the average opinion, and for condemn- 
ing and denouncing things of which they are ignorant, and for 
declaring that to be folly and nonsense which they do not com- 
prehend. 

The content of his doctrines corresponds to this rationalistic 
turn of mind. With Abelard, morality forms the essence of re- 
ligion; Christianity has not offered something new and anti- 
thetical, it merely represents the culmination of a general move- 
ment. Besides this, it has united what was dispersed, cleared 
up what was obscure, and communicated to all what was previ- 
ously accessible only to a few. Jesus is reverenced as the 
founder of a pure moral law. In Christianity, too, let no lan- 
guid inaction reign. Abelard finds it "remarkable that while 
throughout the periods of life and the succession of the ages 
human insight into all created things increases, in faith, where 
error is particularly dangerous, no progress takes place. The 
cause of this must surely be the fact that it is not free to any one 
openly to investigate the question what ought to be believed, 
nor with impunity to express doubt concerning what is affirmed 
by all." In morals, however, Abelard brings about a transition 
from the mediaeval to the modern point of view, inasmuch as 
he gives full recognition to the individual subject, and makes 
the agent's own conviction and conscience the thing of chief 
importance in conduct. 

Thus we see a new spirit arise, which must necessarily be in 
sharp conflict with the environment. But Abelard's vitalising 
of the inherited substance, his demand for a theoretical illumi- 
nation and more skilful adjustment of the articles of faith, was 
certain also to affect his opponents. As a pupil of Abelard we 
should name Peter the Lombard; but Thomas Aquinas, the 
head and front of scholasticism, also stood in close relation 



252 CHRISTIANITY 

to Peter. As has often happened in the history of religions, so 
here orthodoxy appropriates and uses for its own ends the 
weapons which rationalism has prepared. 

Still more dangerous was the tendency toward a merely emo- 
tional assimilation of doctrine, which found its expression in 
mysticism. Here likewise the tendency first appeared on eccle- 
siastical ground and was wholly in sympathy with the Church 
(Bernhard of Clairvaux and the Victorines). But very soon 
arose a radical pantheism (Amalrich of Bena), the spread of 
which the Church was enabled to prevent only by the most 
rigorous means. Life as a whole was obviously in need of a new 
synthesis; to have achieved this, according to the genius of the 
age and with the means it afforded, constitutes the chief service 
rendered by scholasticism at its zenith. 

(b) The Culmination oj the Middle Ages 

The needed synthesis, the chief work of scholasticism, is no 
mere product of formal learning and subtle ingenuity; called 
forth by the urgent demands of universal historical conditions, 
it is itself an achievement of universal historical significance. 
Serious dangers to the traditional faith of the Christian Church 
arose from two sources; on the one hand, mysticism, in view of 
the emphasis it laid on the immediacy of feeling, threatened to 
dissipate the content of faith and to destroy the organisation of 
the Church; on the other, the conflict between knowledge and 
faith grew to alarming proportions when, subsequent to the 
twelfth century, all of the Aristotelian writings gradually be- 
came known in the Occident. The early Middle Ages possessed 
only the logical treatises; and it must have had the effect of a 
momentous discovery, and must have profoundly stirred the 
minds of all scholars, when by the remarkably devious path of 
the Mahometan world and Spain Aristotle's immeasurably rich 
and carefully elaborated system finally reached the Christian 
Occident. The shock was accentuated by the circumstance 
that Averroes, the chief of Mahometan Aristotelians, formu- 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 253 

lated the relation of knowledge and faith in a manner which 
Christianity as well as Mahometanism was unable to accept. 
Knowledge he developed without regard to religion ; and at the 
same time, under the influence of Neo-Platonism, he inter- 
preted Aristotle variously as pantheistic. Wholly without medi- 
ation there follows the introduction of faith; its truths are to 
be blindly accepted on authority as a command of God, how- 
ever flatly they may contradict the results of investigation. 
Thus we have the well-known doctrine of a twofold truth, in 
accordance with which that may be false in theology which is 
true in philosophy, and vice versa; thus there is an inner cleav- 
age in men's minds, and the danger that to outsiders the world 
of faith may seem to be accepted on external grounds and to 
lack internal truth. None the less, this definite separation of 
the two spheres, which must have been particularly welcome to 
acute minds, penetrated also into Christianity. Its chief rep- 
resentative in the thirteenth century was Siger of Brabant, 
whose history has been but recently cleared up. His writings 
possess a lucid style and show precision of thought. Dante's 
honourable mention of him, which was inspired by deep feel- 
ing, of itself insures him a lasting fame. The representatives of 
the Church were thrown by this intrusion of Aristotelianism into 
an awkward position. Its intellectual power, the wealth of its 
material, but especially the perfection of its scientific technique, 
could not be ignored; "as in the case of the discovery of new 
weapons, no one thereafter could fight without making use of 
them" (Seeberg). At the same time, those of the older way of 
thinking, the minds particularly dominated by Augustine and 
Plato, felt that in Aristotle and his elaboration of concepts a 
foreign element was intruding itself into Christianity and en- 
dangering its distinctive character; a rationalising dissolution of 
the traditional content of faith seemed to lie near at hand. The 
solution of the conflict came through the development of a 
Christian Aristotelianism, particularly by Albert the Great and 
still more by Thomas Aquinas — an Aristotelianism which under- 
took at once to preserve the superiority of Christianity and to 



254 CHRISTIANITY 

utilise the proffered wealth of Aristotle. The concept of grada- 
tion became the means whereby knowledge and faith, the world 
of nature and the kingdom of grace, were brought into a close 
union. This new Aristotelianism could not make any headway 
without coming into conflict with that of Averroes. The two, in 
fact, came into violent collision shortly after the middle of the 
thirteenth century at the University of Paris, then the focus of 
the intellectual interests of Christendom. That the conciliatory 
movement won the victory created no little danger for both sci- 
ence and religion; but it was in harmony with the urgent de- 
mands of the general situation. For only such a movement 
could satisfy the characteristic mediaeval demand for order and 
organisation, and prevent inner decay. However inadequate, 
owing to the profound changes which have taken place, that 
solution has become for us to-day, for the age in question it was 
indisputably of great importance. The capacity here mani- 
fested by the Church to annex movements which threatened to 
become dangerous showed itself also in the case of mysticism, 
which was not rejected, but placed where it appeared it could 
do no harm and only be of service. Out of it all arose a com- 
prehensive synthesis of life which has exerted, and, in spite of 
the changed conditions and the contradictions, still exerts to- 
day, a profound influence upon mankind. 

The historical appreciation of Thomas (1227-1274) has been 
repeatedly prejudiced by the conflicts of the present age. The 
quite just rejection, namely, of an unhistorical Neo-Thomism 
has often caused the original and genuine Thomas to be likewise 
depreciated. While Thomas was not a thinker of the first rank, 
he was no insignificant mind and no fanatic ; he did not rise far 
above his age, but he brought together and elaborated whatever 
it produced, and he did this with great skill and in a moderate 
spirit. That he stood at the summit of the intellectual develop- 
ment of his time is convincingly shown by Dante's recognition of 
him. That of itself should silence all petty censoriousness. 

Thomas's greatness consists in the upbuilding and systematic 
completion of an all-comprehensive Christian view of the world : 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 255 

he brought Christianity into closer relation to civilisation and to 
science, and while fully protecting the ascendency of religion, 
he also awarded to the other departments of life their respective 
rights. For him, however, the fruits of civilisation are repre- 
sented by Aristotle, who, in the totality of his doctrine, appears 
as newly arisen, and hence as an entirely fresh influence. Here 
there was offered a view of the world of astonishing richness and 
symmetrical execution; here was a system which presented a 
definitive conclusion, and nowhere disturbed men with unset- 
tled questions. No wonder that it subdued the minds of the 
Middle Ages with a wholly irresistible force; it offered them, in 
fact, everything they could wish. 

At the same time, a serious problem here presents itself. To 
adapt the Hellenes to Christianity, full as they were of the joy of 
life and wholly concerned with this world, was no easy task; to us 
moderns, it will appear, in fact, impossible. But the mediaeval 
thinker found the Greek at one with him in an ideal estimate of 
things; further, following the precedent of most of the Arabic 
philosophers, he saw Aristotle through the medium of Neo- 
Platonic ideas, and understood him in a more inward and 
religious sense than the facts really allow; in particular, Aris- 
totle's dominant interest in the sense-world, and his reserve re- 
specting ultimate questions, facilitated a rapprochement with 
Christianity, so soon as a graduated relation between the two 
worlds had been admitted. Such a gradation, however, is the 
leading thought of Thomas. With him, every sphere receives its 
proper due, even the lower unfolds its peculiar character undis- 
turbed by the higher. Thomas recognises both a distinct realm 
of nature and an independent task for natural knowledge; and 
he condemns all direct reference to God in the details of scien- 
tific questions as a refuge of ignorance {asylum ignorantice). But 
the lower sphere must keep within its bounds, and avoid all en- 
croachment upon the higher. The realm of nature sketches only 
in outline what in the realm of grace, the world of historical 
Christianity, is further carried out and finally established. Thus, 
e. g., according to Thomas, the existence of God, the found a- 



256 CHRISTIANITY 

tion of the world in Him, the immortality of the soul, are de- 
monstrable by mere reason; on the other hand, the doctrines of 
the Trinity, the temporal creation of the world, and the resurrec- 
tion of the body, derive their authority from the Christian reve- 
lation. Hence, subordination is coupled with the above inde- 
pendence, and the distinction of spheres with a comprehensive 
relationship. We are here told, "The divine right does not in- 
fract the human"; "Grace does not destroy nature, but com- 
pletes it (gratia naturam non tollit, sed perficit) " ; "reason is the 
precursor of faith." 

Above the realm of historical revelation, however, lies a still 
higher stage: the immediate union with God which mystic 
vision inaugurates, the realm of glory (gloria). But this realm is 
rather a hope than a possession of the earthly life; moreover, 
the way to it necessarily leads through the ecclesiastical order; 
of himself the individual could not attain it. Finally, the whole 
forms a single great temple : nature is the vestibule, grace leads 
into the sanctuary, a holy of holies fulfils every yearning and 
discloses itself to the faithful in occasional solemn moments of 
ecstasy. 

But things which fit together smoothly in a general scheme 
often cause untold trouble and labour in the details of execution. 
Now there were conflicts to be mitigated, now lacunae to be 
filled. This required an energetic and skilful employment of 
logical tools. Herein Thomas did, in fact, achieve important 
results; he proved himself a master both in the uniting of ap- 
parently distinct things by a chain of syllogisms, and in settling 
contradictions by acute distinctions, by pointing out the differ- 
ent meanings of concepts. 

This logical capacity also rendered a valuable service to the 
permanence of the Christian tradition. The dogmas, it is true, 
do not spring from mere reason; but, once they have been com- 
municated by God, they also may become an object of logical 
treatment. Thus arises the first system of Christian moral the- 
ology; in particular, the ecclesiastical order is carefully articu- 
lated and firmly welded together. All the minutiae are brought 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 257 

into relation and subordinated to a superior rule; the Church 
accordingly assumes an out and out hierarchical form, more 
hierarchical even than was foreshadowed in Augustine. Dif- 
ferent lines of thought here tend toward the same goal: viz., the 
demand that the Church form a compact unity or single body 
(unum corpus), the belief in the progressive transmission of di- 
vine powers from higher to lower; finally, the assumption, self- 
evident for the mediaeval thinker, that for us there can be no full 
reality without a visible embodiment, and hence, likewise, no solid 
organisation without the headship of a single person. Accor- 
dingly, Thomas of necessity defended the concentration of eccle- 
siastical power in a single hand ; and he condemned as lost and 
as meriting severe punishment those who withdraw from the 
Church and perhaps even oppose her. All the independence of 
the individual is surrendered; the Church becomes the con- 
science of mankind ; moreover, the full development of the doc- 
trine of purgatory increases the ecclesiastical power. At the 
same time, the secular pretensions of the Church are extended; it 
now dominates all intellectual life, and enjoys unconditional su- 
premacy over the state. Just as, throughout Christendom, kings 
are inferior to priests, so all the kings of Christian peoples must be 
subject to the Pope, "as to Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself." 

In spite of its harsh formulation, this principle does not merit 
the reproach of representing a lust for power; it is not desire 
for her own prosperity, but for the welfare of the divine order, 
and solicitude for the salvation of mankind, which give rise to 
the secular dominion of the Church. Thomas himself is deeply 
imbued with an ascetic spirit; in agreement with his age, he 
unhesitatingly calls the Beyond his fatherland (patria), and 
plainly longs for the peace of a life dedicated solely to the con- 
templation of God. But that which more than all else prevents 
the Church from being completely transformed into an ecclesi- 
astical state is the belief in the communication of divine life and 
divine love in the sacraments. In them the efficacy of the pas- 
sion of Christ (efficacia passionis) is kept alive; the sacraments 
of the new Covenant "not only denote but produce grace" {non 



258 CHRISTIANITY 

solum significant, sed causant gratiam). Hence they become an 
important feature in a biographical sketch of Thomas; in par- 
ticular, the system of ecclesiastical order receives through the 
sacraments a mystical background and a religious spirit. 

Accordingly, it is wholly intelligible that Thomas became the 
J> chief philosopher of the Middle Ages, and that he was promptly 
honoured — as the paintings of the time show — as the classical 
interpreter of Christian truth. The conception of order, which 
dominated the Middle Ages, attained in him its appropriate 
philosophical expression; a great system of life is unfolded, one 
which recognises and holds firmly together all the manifold 
problems; the horizon becomes considerably enlarged, and by 
the introduction of bodies of ancient thought a sort of renais- 
sance takes place. But of course this approbation holds good 
only from the standpoint of the Middle Ages, not from that of 
the present. 

That Thomas was the most eminent mind of his age is shown 
by the fact that Dante takes him as his starting point. Al- 
though we cannot here do the great poet justice, we must not 
wholly pass him by. Dante furnishes us with a striking instance 
of the truth that man is not necessarily a mere product of the 
time, that, rather, he is capable of making the whole scope and 
content of his age the expression of a personality which trans- 
cends it, the instrument of a search for universal truth. For 
while his world of thought, so far as its content is concerned, is 
wholly that of the mediaeval Church, in particular that of 
Thomas, and he has the appearance merely of accepting and 
giving an artistic form to a traditional substance, the old sub- 
stance, here freshly fashioned, really presents new aspects; in 
fact, through the closer relation to personality into which it is 
now brought, it becomes something essentially other and higher. 
That is to say, since the poet and thinker here transforms all 
that he appropriates into an intimate experience of his own 
great soul, since he gathers upon a single thread all the endless 
variety of the world, fashioning it into one total vision seen by 
mighty power, the infinite and varied fulness of the world is 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 259 

irresistibly fused into a closer unity, and instead of constituting 
a bare skeleton becomes instinct with spiritual life. Henceforth 
the principal outlines of the vast mediaeval structure stand forth 
with distinctness; its important truths acquire a marvellous di- 
rectness and simplicity without losing their theoretical justifica- 
tion; indeed, we may say that the mediaeval world, which in 
other instances occupied only the detached thoughts of men, 
here for the first and only time is completely encompassed by 
an entire intellectual life, inwardly mastered, and so trans- 
formed into an experience of the whole man. In particular, the 
harsh contrasts and the motive forces of that world here first 
attain a complete development and produce their full effects; 
especially is this true of the ascent through stern negation to 
blissful affirmation, and of the mighty conflict between justice 
and love, which pervades and agitates that world. To trans- 
pose in such wise an entire world into a personal medium was 
possible only for a personality which combined great unifying 
power with the widest range of sensibility, the capacity, namely, 
to experience within itself the whole gamut of human emotion, 
from sober earnestness and stern severity to inner tenderness 
and passionate love; a personality which, securely rooted in it- 
self, yet possessed the warmest sympathy for all the activity and 
fortunes of men. And the realm which the poet created would 
not have become the permanent possession of mankind, and 
have continued to exert its untold influence, had he not been 
endowed with the power to give such bodily semblance, such 
force and truth to the creatures of his imagination that they 
stand before our eyes, and stir our love and hate, as if they were 
real. Thus Dante not only became a support for his people, 
who also owed him much for his enrichment of the language; 
but we, too, honour him as one who added to the intellectual 
possessions of mankind. In his own day and generation, more- 
over, he penetrated beyond all that was merely temporal to the 
eternal immanent in it; and for the things that are eternal he 
secured a worthy recognition. No one will think meanly of the 
Middle Ages who justly appreciates Dante. 



2 6o CHRISTIANITY 

The Middle Ages did not come to a standstill with Thomas, 
nor did they simply follow the middle course mapped out by 
him. Mysticism was not to be so easily appropriated, little as 
the personal disposition of its leading minds inclined them to a 
conflict with the Church. And soon the attempt was made to 
formulate the relation of knowledge and faith in a different way 
from that of Thomas; and from this attempt arose another type 
of life. In general, the Middle Ages show far more variety and 
far more movement than it is customary, even at present, to as- 
cribe to them. 

The head of mysticism, and its supreme speculative mind, 
was Meister Eckhart (d. 1327), a magician in the use of words, 
and the creator of the philosophical terminology of the German 
tongue. In his views as a whole, it is not his aim to separate 
himself from scholasticism and Thomas Aquinas; and even his 
mysticism offers little as to its concepts that is new to any one 
familiar with the historical connections ; it contains the same 
interweaving of logical abstraction and religious emotion which 
fascinated so many minds subsequent to Plotinus; and it is ex- 
posed to the same danger, namely, that of sacrificing all content 
and of losing itself in formlessness the moment that it relin- 
quishes its hold upon the definite and the particular. But this 
mediaeval thinker, sprung from a new racial type, possesses 
more freshness and immediacy of feeling, more joyfulness of 
mood, and more simplicity of expression, than was to be found 
in declining antiquity; moreover, he possesses a marvellous 
ability to give form and fashion and palpable reality to the in- 
comprehensible. We will linger with him a little longer, since 
no other thinker of that time is capable to-day of so direct an 
influence. 

Eckhart's mysticism has a simple intellectual framework. 
God does not emerge from the mere essence, the "abyss," of 
His nature into living reality without expressing Himself; by 
expressing Himself, He creates things; hence, He alone is the 
reality in all things. All error and depravity come from God's 
creatures seeking to be something on their own account; all 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 261 

salvation lies in complete absorption in God. To man, as the 
thinking soul, is assigned the task of leading the world back 
to God ; hence God Himself cannot do without man. 

Accordingly, the return of the soul to God, to whom its whole 
being belongs, and the elimination of all egoistic demands for hap- 
piness, become the essence of life; there is engendered an ener- 
getic struggle against an obstinate clinging to the individuality 
of the ego, and for a large and free growth of man's nature out 
of the infinitude of the Divine life. Whoever demands a recom- 
pense for his labour is like the money-changers whom Jesus 
drove from the temple; the truth, however, "covets no trade." 
Whoever seeks anything for himself possesses no true love 
toward God. For, "if I had a friend, and loved him in order 
that he might bring good to me and do my will, then I should 
not love my friend but myself." Likewise, selfishness and van- 
ity in religion are illuminated with unsparing brightness. "The 
true life does not consist in our being all sweet words and holy 
demeanour, in our having a great appearance of sanctity, in our 
name being borne far and wide, in our being greatly loved by 
God's friends, in our being so pampered and coddled by God 
that it seems to us that God has forgotten all his creatures save 
ourselves alone, and that we imagine that whatever we ask of 
Him will forthwith be granted. No, not that; what God requires 
of us is something quite different." 

In truth, the thing is to destroy every appearance of individual 
being, and thus to eradicate all selfishness. The principal means 
is suffering, not merely outward but above all inward suffering. 
Outward suffering, namely, "does not make man patient, 
rather it merely shows whether he is patient, just as fire shows 
whether the coin is silver or copper." True suffering, on the 
contrary, " is the mother of all virtue, for it so weighs down man's 
heart that he cannot stand erect in the presence of arrogance, 
and therefore must be humble. But the highest pinnacle of 
exaltation lies in the deepest abyss of humility; the deeper the 
abyss, the higher the altitude; the height and depth are one." 
Man must be brought to a spiritual destitution, such that he 



262 CHRISTIANITY 

wants nothing for himself, knows nothing and has nothing; 
everything must be destroyed "which lives for its own will and 
own use, or for any will." 

But to such a depreciation of the merely human in man, there 
corresponds an exaltation through absorption in the Divine 
nature. " The spirit dies being wholly absorbed in the miracle 
of the Deity. For in the unity, it possesses no distinctness; the 
personal loses its name in the unity; God takes the soul into 
Himself, as the sun draws into itself the morning glow." Then 
is the word fulfilled: "Blessed are they that die in the Lord." 
For, in the re-birth from God, the spirit receives a share in the 
whole plenitude of the Divine life: "If I am blessed, all things 
are in me; and where I am, there God is: so I am in God; and 
where God is, there am I." All egoistic enjoyment is now so 
far repressed that it can be said: "Whoever has once been 
touched by the truth, and by justice, and by goodness, that man 
could never for a moment turn aside from them, even though 
all the pains of hell followed in their train." 

Such a life can unfold itself only in the deepest inwardness, 
in a coherent unity of being transcending all the diversity of 
powers and achievements. If the soul would find "peace and 
freedom of heart in a silent repose," it must "call all its powers 
home again and withdraw them from scattered things into an 
inner activity." Thus there develops, apart from all contact 
with the outward world, a profoundly inward life of the heart; 
even the word Gemut (the heart, as the seat of the affections and 
will) received from Eckhart its peculiar shade of meaning. 

Then there arises a struggle for the full immediacy of the re- 
ligious life, a rejection, or at least diminution, of all outward 
mediation. God is not far from us; "Thou mayest not seek 
Him here or there; He is not farther from thee than the door of 
thy heart; there He stands and waits; whomsoever He finds 
ready, will open to Him and let Him in." Likewise, the work of 
Christ means no outward vicarious agency, which relieves us of re- 
sponsibility; we should all become what he was. "It avails me 
not to have a perfect Brother; I must become perfect myself." 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 263 

But, Jesus "has been a messenger from God to us, and has 
brought us our salvation; and the salvation which he brought 
us was ours." His example should make our pains light; for 
"the good knight complains not of his wounds, when he looks 
upon his king, who is wounded with him." 

With such a belief, the fear of God as a just judge yields to 
the nobler feelings of love and trust. Man ought not to fear 
God; this alone is the right fear, that one fears to lose God. 
We ought not to be vassals but friends of God. True, man is 
full of sins; but, "what a drop is to the sea, that the sins of all 
men are to the boundless goodness of God." 

Finally, there is here an eager impulse to declare to the world 
the riches of the new life by active doing: "when a man exer- 
cises himself in the contemplative life, he cannot bear the sheer 
wealth of it, he must pour it forth and exercise himself in the 
active life." But since the whole world is now a reflection of the 
Divine nature, there is no room for a harsh opposition between 
sacred and profane, spiritual and worldly; the right disposition 
can possess God in everyday life and in intercourse with men, 
quite as securely as in a desert waste or in a cell. The unassum- 
ing, thoughtful work of man for man takes precedence of all 
else; the simplest acts of helpful love are better than all pious 
enthusiasm. Martha, who manifested toward Jesus self-sacri- 
ficing care, is thought to be more worthy than Mary, who lis- 
tened to His words; a master of living (Lebemeister) is worth a 
thousand reading masters (Lesemeister). Indeed, "were one 
caught up into the third heaven, like Paul, and should see a 
poor man who begged a broth of him, it were better that he leave 
his ecstasy and serve the needy man." Accordingly, specifically 
religious works here lose their distinctive value. Of prayer we 
are told: "The heart is not made pure by outward prayer, but 
prayer becomes pure from a pure heart." Worshippers of relics 
are accosted with: "What seek ye, people, with the dead bones? 
Why seek ye not the living shrine, that it may give you eternal 
life? For the dead hath neither to give nor to take." Particu- 
larly objectionable is the confining all men to a single order; for 



264 CHRISTIANITY 

all have not the same way pointed out to them: "what is life to 
one man is death to another." The one essential point is that 
everything be done from love; it is "the strongest of all bonds, 
and yet a sweet burden." "He who has found this way, let him 
seek no other." "But where more love dwells, no one knows; 
that lies hidden in the soul." 

In the intention of Eckhart, all this should fall within the 
ecclesiastical order, and not work against it; it possesses no re- 
pellant and excluding force, as was later the case with Luther; 
the accentuation to the point of an Either — Or was still wanting. 
Yet there is here developed in its fullest strength a force tending 
to intensify life and make it more sincere, to free it from the ego- 
istic demand for happiness, as well as from all outward forms 
and merely outward acts: there is here much, in fact, which is 
broader and freer than in the case of Luther. 

From the outset the system of Thomas encountered the op- 
position of those who, in accordance with the distinguishing 
trait of the older movement, attached themselves to Augustine 
and Plato, who regarded the development of Christian thought 
under the influence of Aristotle as too rationalistic and too de- 
pendent upon the dialectical elaboration of concepts, and in op- 
position thereto emphasised the importance of facts, and the pri- 
macy of the will, as practical religious interests. This movement 
had its principal seat in England, particularly at Oxford; here 
also was found the man who brought the movement to its cul- 
mination, and first opposed to Thomism a fully mature system, 
viz., Duns Scotus, the acutest mind of the Middle Ages (d. 1308). 
His relation to Thomas is often compared with that of Kant to 
Leibniz; while laying increased demands upon rational proof, 
he greatly restricted the domain of rational knowledge, and 
stoutly resisted the transformation of theology into philosophy. 
Like Kant, he directed his attack not so much against the con- 
tent of truths as against their customary proofs and formulas. 
In theology, he upheld the primacy of the will and of practice as 
opposed to theory; theology therefore he calls practical knowl- 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 265 

edge, just as faith is a practical attitude. He appeals to the 
revelations made by the absolutely free will of God; he is not 
concerned with necessity, but with the "contingent." Through- 
out, the will has attributed to it a decided pre-eminence over the 
intellect, and at the same time a freedom of decision amounting 
to unmotived choice. Just as religion here becomes wholly 
positive, so in general, individuality is viewed as something 
positive, which cannot be deduced from a general notion. And 
this undeducible individuality does not appear, as it easily 
might to the Aristotelians, as something incidental or even ob- 
structive, but as the highest perfection of being. The shifting 
from a rational to a positive mode of thought is clearly manifest 
in the following antithesis: according to Thomas, God com- 
mands the good because it is good, while according to Scotus, 
the good is good because God commands it. It is significant of 
the scientific character of the latter's work that the trend toward 
positivism was not the result of opposition to dialectic, but that, 
on the contrary, it accompanied an improvement in its technique 
and a great display of acumen and dialectical skill. In partic- 
ular, the power of conceptual analysis here reached its zenith; 
no heed was paid to the charm of linguistic forms. Distinctions 
of permanent importance were drawn, and philosophical termi- 
nology was enriched and made more precise in manifold ways. 
Every cultivated man daily uses expressions which go back to 
Duns Scotus. At the same time, however, the danger of subtle 
hairsplitting and empty quibbling about words lies near at hand. 
So it happened that to later thinkers, e. g., to Erasmus, Scotus 
could appear as the typical representative of an unfruitful scho- 
lasticism. This was possible, indeed, only because the sense for 
the problems which dominated the thought and productive 
activity of this most singular man was extinguished. 

(c) The Later Middle Ages 

In the further course of the Middle Ages there was a disso- 
lution of those intellectual relations whose production had con- 
stituted the work of its period of culmination. So-called Nom- 



266 CHRISTIANITY 

inalism, whose principal representative was William of Occam 
(c. 1280-toward 1350), pursued still further the direction taken 
by Duns Scotus, by denying the existence of universals, re- 
stricting man solely to subjective notions, and refusing him any 
access to things. But all possibility of a scientific basis for 
faith disappears at the same time : faith is rather to be accepted 
simply as a fact, just as the Church transmits it; and the latter 
here appeals directly to the Bible. In the end, everything de- 
pends upon the omnipotence and arbitrary will of God. The 
irony of fate, however, shows us this devotee of the principle of 
authority engaged in a bitter conflict with actually constituted 
authority. The ideal of absolute poverty, not only of the indi- 
vidual members of the order but of the order itself — an ideal 
which he had embraced with the utmost fervour, he sees rejected 
by the Pope; and he is led by this conflict into an increasingly 
severe censure, not only of the Pope individually, but of the Pa- 
pacy and of its pretensions to temporal power; at the same time 
he becomes a champion of the independence of the state and of 
the empire. "The sacredness of poverty converted him into an 
opponent of the Papacy and a champion of the independence of 
the state" (Seeberg). But, notwithstanding an unswerving de- 
votion to these ideals throughout his life, as to immediate results 
he attained practically nothing. Yet his scientific turn of mind 
dominated the thinking of more than a century, and, in certain 
essential respects, prepared the way for the Reformation; in 
fact, Luther calls himself an Occamist, and venerates Occam 
as his "dear master." 

For our purposes, those works of the later Middle Ages which 
reflect a more moderate and practical mysticism, are of more 
immediate importance. Above all, the famous devotional book 
of Thomas a Kempis (d. 1471), the "Imitation of Christ," ex- 
erted a kind of influence which makes it necessary for us to dwell 
upon it a moment, and consider the grounds of its effect. 

Little as this work presents a connected view of life, as a whole 
it is pervaded by fundamental moods at once simple and pow- 
erful. We perceive a soul overwhelmed by the misery of the 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY 267 

human lot and striving with inner yearning to rise above it. All 
longing is directed away from the world toward God, from the 
Here to the Beyond; these are diametrically opposed, so that 
accepting the one involves rejecting the other; "the highest 
wisdom is to rise to heaven through contempt for the world." 
All the content and worth of life comes from the relation to God ; 
but the relation is not to be established by knowledge, by pro- 
found speculation, of which there is a strong distrust; rather it 
is to be established by a personal relation of heart to heart, by 
self-sacrificing devotion and love. The whole scale of values is 
determined by the conviction that whatever frees us from the 
world is good, whatever entangles us in it is bad. Again there 
arises a religious utilitarianism, a restriction to what is necessary 
to salvation, a process fatal among other things to secular 
knowledge. The chief approach to God is suffering, with its 
power to destroy all worldly pleasure; moreover, a solitary and 
silent life (solitudo et silentium) is enjoined, likewise a willing 
obedience, a cheerful deferring to others, a mastery of self to 
the point of complete self-renunciation, a continual remem- 
brance of death. " Man rises above earthly things by two wings, 
simplicity and purity." This picture is completed by the re- 
quirement of love, of a constant helpful disposition, and a mu- 
tual bearing of burdens. 

But these sentiments do not apply to man in the concrete, to 
the living personality; detached from any solid basis, they float 
in the free air, and lead off into the indefinite and the abstract. 
For, all intimacy with men is discouraged; we should have as 
little intercourse with others as possible; we should neither 
wish that any one take us to his heart, nor concern ourselves 
deeply with love for individual men. Here we get a glimpse into 
an ascetic, deeply passionate mood of a monkish sort. That, 
however, the heart cannot really love in this abstract fashion but 
requires for its affection a living object, is evident even here; 
for the more feeling is detached from concrete human relations, 
the more exclusively it concentrates itself upon the personality 
of Jesus. He alone is to be loved pre-eminently and on his 



268 CHRISTIANITY 

own account; all others only for his sake. One should keep the 
image of Jesus's life ever before him, and make it the pattern of 
all his own conduct: the "Imitation of Christ," in love and in 
suffering, in self-denial and in conquest, becomes the well-spring 
of human life. 

But in all this one is concerned simply with personal salva- 
tion; there is no solicitude for mankind at large; social condi- 
tions are accepted as if man had no power to alter them. Even 
within the Christian life, all the emphasis is laid upon individ- 
ual initiative; Divine grace and the ecclesiastical organisation 
are presupposed, yet the individual must depend upon himself 
for their appropriation and use; the final decision rests with 
him. This decision is not an outward but an inward act; "he 
who loves much, accomplishes much"; but, none the less, it is 
something to be produced by us ; even the state of the inner 
life is an achievement of the man himself. The insufficiency 
of human conduct is not questioned; only the insufficiency 
means shortcoming instead of complete failure; what is needed, 
then, is the supplementing of our capacities, not the regenera- 
tion of our nature. Thus this view of life presents various cross 
currents; and all its spiritual inwardness cannot preserve it 
from an unedifying justification by works. 

So, too, in the treatment of the summum bonum, conflicting 
tendencies appear. On the one hand, there is a selfish desire 
for happiness; instead of complete and entire renunciation, 
there is deferred enjoyment; the present is sacrificed, but only 
for the sake of the future; service is accepted, but in order later 
to rule; temporal drudgery is endured, but on account of eter- 
nal bliss. Amid all the apparent devotion and sacrifice, it is the 
personal advantage which is kept in view; God and Christ are 
merely means to human blessedness. But this is only one side 
of Thomas. A no less strong tendency is a disinterested devo- 
tion to God ; here a pure love for the good and the eternal mani- 
fests itself, and finds expression in language at once simple and 
noble. " I would rather be poor for Thy sake, than rich without 
Thee. I prefer to be Thy pilgrim upon earth, to possessing 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 269 

heaven without Thee. For where Thou art, it is heaven; but 
where Thou art not, it is death and hell." "I do not trouble 
myself about what Thou givest apart from Thyself, for I seek 
Thine own self, not Thy gifts." 

Accordingly, the noble and the selfish, the sublime and the 
petty, lie here side by side; quite likely, precisely this combina- 
tion contributed much to the unparalleled extent of the book's 
acceptance; for the author who possesses much in common with 
the average of mankind, and also the power of elevating his 
readers, has the best chance of attaining a wide influence. 
Moreover, in the development of his doctrines, Thomas often 
frees himself entirely from the monkish point of view; hence 
deep and noble emotions find an expression which is raised 
above the strife of parties, and this expression is so simple, so 
felicitous, so convincing, that every religious mind can find re- 
flected therein its own meditations and experiences. 

Hence, persons of the most diverse persuasions, quite be- 
yond the pale of the Christian Church, have found delight in 
the "Imitation of Christ," and have drawn from it refreshment 
and inspiration for their own lives. It is the last work in which 
Christianity in its older form made a universal appeal. 

C. MODERN CHRISTIANITY 
I. THE REFORMATION 

Christianity had hitherto experienced inner transformations 
in abundance without these changes leading to an abrupt break 
or interrupting the continuity of the development. That matters 
now took a different course, and that a new form of Christianity 
arose, can hardly be explained by religion alone; the cause was 
a general change in intellectual and spiritual conditions, in the 
processes and tone of life. Early Christianity received the im- 
press of its distinguishing features in the fourth century, when 
the peculiar conditions of that epoch deeply influenced it. Man- 
kind was surfeited and weary with culture; there were no great 



270 CHRISTIANITY 

ideals to guide and uplift work; in the individual, the feeling of 
moral weakness predominated; owing to the enormous influx 
of crude elements, Christian life rapidly declined. Moreover, 
the age was oppressed by a harsh contrast between the spiritual 
and the sensuous — a reaction consequent upon the refined sen- 
suousness in which every decaying civilisation issues. In such 
a state of things, the first demand was to provide man with a 
firm foothold outside of himself, to free him from doubt, lift 
him above all final shortcomings, protect him from the storms 
of life, and bring him into the sure haven of eternal rest. The 
longing of the time was for authority and for definitely settled 
conclusions; men sought to lighten their own burdens to the 
utmost possible, and turned eagerly to the mysterious, the mag- 
ical, the incomprehensible. When, accordingly, the dogmas were 
welded into an unassailable system, and the objective order of 
the Church claimed the exclusive privilege of providing salva- 
tion for all men, this inflexible system and this claim precisely 
met the condition and the needs of the age; and therein lay 
their irresistible power. 

This movement was continued by the Middle Ages, and, at their 
culminating point, a system was created in the Roman Catholic 
Church which stands as a unique phenomenon, not only within 
Christianity and the sphere of religion, but within the whole in- 
tellectual history of man. Not merely the individual adherents, 
but the work of civilisation in all its branches was annexed and 
assimilated by religion; on the other hand, religion was ex- 
pected, in the formation of the Church, to rise above all the 
inadequacy and contingency of human conditions, and con- 
solidate itself into a thoroughly independent empire of divine 
powers and activities. This empire opposed to the instability 
of the rest of human life the contrast of eternal truth held as a 
secure possession, and presented itself as the sole mediator be- 
tween man and spiritual and divine things; within itself, how- 
ever, it contained a wonderful reconciliation of the contradic- 
tions between which human life moves, and by which it is con- 
tinually threatened with inner disruption. This world and the 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 271 

next, the sensuous and the spiritual, were here closely connected 
and intertwined; the accepted view of the world was repre- 
sented by a living community, and this community was ele- 
vated and ennobled by the divine powers which were imparted 
to it, and which made of it the central point in a great world- 
wide relationship. Intellectual work and the development of 
power went hand in hand; a great deal of reasoning was car- 
ried on with rigid logical consistency, but it rested upon a super- 
rational, mystical basis ; the rigour of the moral ideal was tem- 
pered by an element of the beautiful borrowed from Hellenism, 
while the danger of falling into effeminate indulgence was pre- 
vented by the austerity of the moral order. Whatever inequal- 
ities and contradictions remained were prudently reconciled or 
skilfully concealed, with the aid of the conception of hierarch- 
ical gradation. 

Such an organisation of the world and of life no unpreju- 
diced observer can deny possesses the character of greatness. 
But, just as this system sprang from particular historical con- 
ditions, so it rests upon peculiar presuppositions; and whether 
these are valid for all ages and forever bind mankind, may very 
well become a matter of doubt. Definitive conclusions of the 
sort are admissible only where there is a faith not merely in an 
eternal truth but in a complete temporal revelation of that truth, 
and where the course of history promises no kind of real ad- 
vancement or innovation, where, accordingly, life possesses in 
its very foundations the character of perfect stability; they are 
further possible only when the form of religion they present 
constitutes the normal type of all religion, and nowhere comes 
into conflict with the necessary requirements of the human soul. 
But such a conflict is inevitable, owing to the fact that man, the 
living individual, will not in the long run accept the passive role 
here assigned to him. For, in the above mediaeval system, man 
does not find his intellectual centre of gravity in himself, in his 
convictions and conscience, but in the Church which embraces 
and dominates his life; the system of life is less a consequence 
of his activity than something which is imposed upon him; 



272 CHRISTIANITY 

throughout, unconditional submission and willing devotion are 
required of him. Notwithstanding all the warmth of feeling 
and all the diligence in pious works, the character of freedom, 
joyfulness, and independence, is wanting; it is the religion of 
impotence, and of conscious impotence. But could such im- 
potence last ? Must there not a renewal of strength follow, and 
more and more resist the above tendency ? 

Such a renewal of strength did take place: it was not an 
audacious presumption on the part of individuals, rather there 
were great changes in the actual conditions of life, which once 
more brought fresh power and courage to mankind, and altered 
the attitude toward ultimate questions. The gloomy and op- 
pressive influence of declining antiquity began to fade; new 
peoples arose, exulting in a youthful vigour which, at first di- 
rected chiefly to outward things, was finally turned inward and 
necessarily brought about a new intellectual epoch. The 
Church, with its tangible organisation and its strict discipline, 
had performed an excellent service in educating the nations; 
but, like every phase of education, this also came to an end ; so 
soon as the state of nonage was distinctly felt, it became unen- 
durable; thenceforward, an institution which had been a source 
of blessing through long centuries threatened to become an un- 
yielding obstruction. 

Even in the Middle Ages, sentiments and movements of the 
kind were already manifest; but the new impulse did not attain 
self-consciousness until the rise of the Renaissance. Then minds 
awoke as if from a long sleep; life became more spontaneous, 
freer thoughts of God and the world, and a belief in a spiritual 
and divine life even beyond the pale of ecclesiastical forms, 
arose and created the joyful mood of a fresh dawn. Simulta- 
neously, the eye was opened to the beauty of the surrounding 
world, while thought and reflection were captivated by the 
wealth of natural objects. Moreover, radical social changes 
were inaugurated, leading to new developments. The feudal 
system was inwardly broken; a powerful middle class arose, 
and with it the influence and honour of the burgher's toil in- 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 273 

creased; still other social strata sought to rise, and demanded 
a better standard of living. All this finally led to a change also 
in ultimate beliefs. 

But this fresh impulse, with all its fulness of life, would of itself 
never have produced a renovation of religion; in view of its in- 
crease of man's power and of his feeling of self-importance, it 
was calculated, rather, to divert him from religion. Religion 
could triumph only if the movement were transferred to its own 
sphere, only in case the progressive forces themselves felt 
a strong sense of the need of guidance, only if a sovereign per- 
sonality appeared for whose soul the forms of the Church offered 
no peace, a personality powerful enough to penetrate to the 
very foundations of our spiritual existence in order to win that 
peace, and courageous enough to carry out irresistible inner con- 
victions in the face of a supreme existing order made inviolable 
by the faith of mankind. 

Such a personality appeared in Luther : all the spiritual cur- 
rents that swept through the Reformation became flesh and 
blood in him; his masterful and concrete grasp of things 
filled the whole movement with glowing life and irresistible 
attraction. 

"Between ourselves," Goethe wrote to Knebel, "there is 
nothing interesting in the whole Reformation except the char- 
acter of Luther; and he, moreover, is the only thing which made 
an actual impression upon the multitude." 

Our characterisation of the man refers particularly to the 
period of struggle, which finds its literary expression chiefly in 
the treatise on Christian freedom (de liber tat e Christiana). 
Here and there we shall draw also upon Melanchthon, where he 
has formulated the leading ideas with special clearness. 

(a) Luther 

Luther's principal change in the mediaeval system consisted 
in transferring the religious problem in all essentials to the 
immediate personal life of the individual, and there working it 



274 CHRISTIANITY 

out in its full scope. That does not mean merely bringing a 
given content somewhat nearer to subjective feeling; for the 
Middle Ages were surely not wanting in subjective feeling, and 
a change therein would never have brought about a revolution 
in intellectual life. The innovation consisted rather in bringing 
the whole of transmitted religion more vigorously to bear upon 
man in his total being, upon a living unity of human person- 
ality, and in measuring it by that standard; that religion thus 
became more an affair of the whole man inevitably made it far 
more real and true in itself. From this change there resulted a 
greater concentration, a diversion of effort from the widely ex- 
tended ramifications of the ecclesiastical structure to a single 
all-dominating central point, and a corresponding elimination, 
or at least, subordination, of everything which appeared, in con- 
trast with the main issue, as of merely subsidiary importance. 
Inasmuch as this concentration forced into closer proximity, as it 
were, the whole substance of the religious world, the latent un- 
rest and all the conflicting interests of Christendom made them- 
selves far more acutely felt; the struggle of the whole man with 
the whole of the problem grew into a burden too heavy to bear; 
at the same time the total inadequacy of the assistance offered 
by the mediaeval system became clearly evident. Public and 
personal religion could no longer peacefully tolerate and unite 
with each other, as they had done in the Middle Ages; rather, 
the stronger new life-process transformed the toleration of both 
into an alternative. And the choice between the alternatives 
could not remain doubtful. For, amid the diversity of aims, the 
one task of saving the soul, the moral personality, now rose su- 
preme. Since the exaltation of the task meant demanding the 
perfect holiness of the entire inner man, his salvation appeared 
to be removed to an infinite distance, indeed, to have been made 
absolutely impossible: nothing else could avail in such an ex- 
tremity but the highest Power. Yet God was, as it were, alien- 
ated from the immediate life of man by the mediaeval system; 
His place had been taken by the Church with its means of grace 
and good works. B ut has not the human thereby usurped the place 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 275 

of the Divine ? And can we extort salvation by utmost human 
means, and be sure of it, when God is believed to be angered, 
and Christ appears first and foremost as Judge of the world? 
This was the state of things which confronted Luther. 

Hence, a passionate longing arose for immediate access to 
God, a burning thirst for a saving miracle of infinite love and 
grace. If any such prospect of help presents itself, no regard 
for men or for human ordinances should be allowed to prevent 
the soul bent upon its eternal salvation from embracing it. On 
the contrary, we are told: "I care not for offences; necessity 
breaks iron and knows nothing of offences. I ought to spare 
the weak conscience, when it can be done without danger to my 
soul. When not, I ought to take counsel of my soul, let it give 
offence to the whole or to half the world." 

This desired deliverance through the mediation of super- 
human power has in truth, according to Luther, already taken 
place; it was brought about through the offer of Divine grace in 
Jesus Christ. Only one thing is needful for life, for justice, and 
for Christian freedom. That is the most holy Word of God, 
the Gospel of Christ. The content of the glad tidings is the 
proclamation of the forgiveness of sins, as brought about "by 
the incarnation, the suffering, the resurrection, and the trans- 
figuration of the Son of God." "We believe that Christ suffered 
for us, and that it is for His sake that our sins are forgiven and 
that justice and eternal love are bestowed upon us. For, this 
faith God will accept as a justification before Him" (Augsburg 
Conf.). Hence, the belief that it is for Christ's sake that man 
has a merciful and gracious God, and that a miracle of love has 
spanned the otherwise impassable gulf and restored man to the 
state of a child of God. 

The result is an energetic concentration of Christianity, an 
elevation of life above all visible ties to an immediate relation to 
God. Conformably to such concentration, the whole of life be- 
comes subject to a great contrast, that of the law and the Gos- 
pel. The law is the expression of the Divine command, of the 
moral order, and is for man as man unrealisable, so soon as the 



276 CHRISTIANITY 

whole, the inner, the perfect, are taken as the standard; the 
Gospel is the proclamation of grace and salvation, and is thence- 
forth the proper object of faith. It is impossible that such for- 
giveness and reconciliation can affect man magically and without 
an inner impulse; it requires personal appropriation; and it is 
faith in which this is accomplished. But this single process 
which is all that must take place upon man's part is itself more 
than anything else a matter of Divine grace. "The rest God 
effects with us and through us; this He effects in us and with- 
out us." Here we must refrain from ascribing any merit to man, 
and give honour to God alone. "If justification is attributed to 
faith, it is attributed to the mercy of God, and not to human 
efforts, or human works, or human worthiness" (Melanchthon). 
But if the establishing of a new relation between God and 
man is really altogether God's doing, and man is only a recipi- 
ent, there springs from the change introduced by Luther a new 
life full of fresh and glad activity. For after grace and love have 
removed the contradiction, and destroyed the barrier between 
God and the world, the glory revealed in Christ may be shared 
by all believers, and it is capable of making them, as true chil- 
dren of God, the freest of kings. The heavier the burden of evil 
was formerly felt to be, the greater is the present jubilation over 
the new-found freedom; the more painful the doubt of salvation 
was, the more joyful is the absolute certainty of it. As "the 
Word of God comes to change and to renew the world, as often 
as it comes," so man is now summoned to untiring effort and 
achievement. In particular, the disposition to be helpful and 
self-sacrificing abounds. "From faith there flows love and joy 
in the Lord, and from love flows a glad and free spirit, anxious 
to do service to others without thought of gratitude, of praise or 
blame, of gain or loss." In this sense we are told that we ought 
to be a Christ to one another {alter alterius Christus), and in this 
entirely ethical reference something else is meant than with the 
Greek Church Fathers. "As Christ has offered Himself to me, 
so will I give myself to my neighbour as a sort of Christ (quen- 
dam Christum), in order not to do anything in this life except 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 277 

what I see is necessary, useful, and salutary to my neighbour, 
since I myself through faith have a superabounding share in all 
good things in Christ." Such service to one's neighbour is the 
surest witness of one's own salvation through Divine grace. 
"To forgive one's neighbour makes us sure and certain that God 
has forgiven us." 

However, the chief characteristic of the new life is freedom, 
so that Melanchthon could say in so many words, "In the end 
freedom is Christianity"; freedom not as a natural property, 
but as a favour and gift of God; freedom not of the man in 
himself, but of the "Christian man." But this freedom means 
primarily freedom from the law; that the law shall no longer 
terrify us with its oppression and compulsion, but that we shall 
do the good of our own accord. Freedom, also, from all works; 
not as though they could be dispensed with, but in the sense 
that they do not bring salvation. By faith we are not free from 
works, but from the ascription of value to works (de opinionibus 
operum). Herewith is consummated a change in the ideal of 
Christian perfection. Where works lose all independent value, 
no specifically holy office can be set apart from everyday life, 
and its incumbent clothed with peculiar majesty; there is no 
mark of distinction, no superabounding merit; no sphere of 
activity stands above others in the service of God. In accord- 
ance with the conviction that "God's Word is our sanctuary, 
and makes all things holy," the work of everyday and the call- 
ing of the burgher have full honour and sanctity ascribed to 
them. Hence, much that the older belief accounted of the 
first importance falls to the ground; namely, contempt of 
the world, double morality, the distinction between priests 
and laymen, the store of works of supererogation, and the 
doctrine of purgatory. Herewith, the privileged status and 
the superior power of the Church were shaken in their foun- 
dations. 

A development of the greatest importance now takes place, 
in that the old conception of an invisible church is enormously 
strengthened, and at the same time the human and temporal 



278 CHRISTIANITY 

elements in the visible church are far more distinctly felt. That 
is no mere theoretical distinction; it is a liberation of the re- 
ligious from the merely ecclesiastical; it is an elevation of moral 
and religious personality above all human authority and tradi- 
tion. The Christian is indeed bound to the Divine order, and 
all his strength springs from Divine grace; but just for that 
reason subjection to human dogmas seems something shameful 
and slavish (turpe et iniquiter servile); just for that reason we 
are told that one "ought not to seek justification in prayers and 
divine exercises, such as have been invented by men." "Nei- 
ther the Pope, nor a bishop, nor any man, has a right to impose 
a single syllable upon a Christian without the latter's consent; 
whatever is done otherwise, is done tyrannically." The cere- 
monies are now regarded as appointments having a transitory 
form; to confine salvation to them would mean to diminish the 
Divine grace; they are subject to the changes of time, and are 
like a scaffolding which is removed on the completion of the 
building. The invocation of the saints is condemned with par- 
ticular emphasis, as obscuring the work of Christ and as weak- 
ening the trust in the Divine grace. This change to greater in- 
wardness and to an insistence upon the essential is sustained 
and enforced by the demand that each individual fully appro- 
priate the Divine grace, and that we attain to an unreserved 
faith in regeneration; it is not enough that Christ should be 
generally acknowledged, He must be Christ for thee and me 
(ul tibi et mihi sit Christus). The Divine life should not merely 
somehow touch man, and adhere to him from without; it 
should strike its roots into his very nature, operate in him, and 
pervade his whole life. 

In the presence of this striving for greater sincerity, all ca- 
price on the part of the mere individual, and all derivation of 
divine truth from human reason, are denounced with the ut- 
most energy. The Divine grace comes to man as a fact, and it 
cannot be further deduced or translated into general concepts; 
it is a fact, therefore, before which reason must unconditionally 
bow; the speculations of reason have no place in divine things, 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 279 

nor may the Scriptures be interpreted in accordance with her 
subjective findings, but must be taken and accepted in the 
plain sense of the words. To that extent, the salvation of man 
is here made to depend essentially upon an historical fact, which 
must be not merely of an invisible and spiritual, but also of a 
visible and material sort. There can be no surer prevention of 
caprice, unless the letter itself has authority, and unless the 
sacraments, in addition to the compulsion of faith, contain the 
real presence of Christ. 

From these conditions there springs a life full of movement 
and intense interest. A securer inward peace is won through 
love and grace; a childlike relation to God develops, and with 
it an inner gladness, which illuminates also the life with the 
world, and even throws a glamour over external nature. But all 
the inner growth of life by no means converts the earthly exist- 
ence into an abode of pure bliss. For the opposition of a dark 
and hostile world persists; we are surrounded by a world of 
profound unreason. " God has cast us into the world under the 
devil's sway, so that we possess no paradise here, but must ex- 
pect all manner of misfortune every hour, misfortunes to our 
person, to wife, to property, to honour." Suffering and the 
sense of it are at first increased by the entrance upon the new 
life: "the more of a Christian one is, the more exposed is he to 
evil, to suffering, and to death." The hardest to bear, how- 
ever, is the temptation to doubt. For doubt, and the opposition 
of the reason, are continually being aroused ; inner assaults and 
conflicts which, being spiritual, are far more serious and dan- 
gerous than all bodily ones, are constantly being renewed. But 
finally, the consciousness of salvation through Divine grace and 
love rises free and triumphant above all opposition; while a 
steadfastness which is at once humble and defiant proves itself 
superior to the greatest obstacles. The childlike disposition 
merges with manly courage, with a heroic spirit, which does not 
shun the world but bravely takes up the battle against it. Thus, 
even that which is hostile must ultimately serve to promote 
inner growth. "It is spiritual power which reigns in the pres- 



2 8o CHRISTIANITY 

ence of the enemy and is mighty amid all sorts of oppression. 
This means nothing but that virtue is perfected in weakness, 
and that in all things I can increase in salvation, so that 
even the cross and death are compelled to serve me and 
to co-operate toward my salvation." Yet, even with such 
an inner victory, this life is not the end and completion, 
but a mere preliminary (prcecursus), or rather, a beginning 
(initium) of the future life. "It is not yet done and finished, 
but it is in progress; it is not the goal but the way. Every- 
thing does not glow and shine, but everything is being 
swept." 

The power of initiative at work in this development of life is 
re-enforced by the distinct consciousness of opposition to the 
traditional forms in which the divine truth of Christianity seems 
to be distorted and obscured by human additions. There are 
two foes to combat: Romish arrogance and justification by 
works, and Greek speculation and subjectivity. The contest 
with the Romish influence is consciously the more important, 
yet the opposition to Hellenism is in reality not much less prom- 
inent. In Luther's opinion, Hellenism had flooded Christianity 
with foreign systems of thought, chiefly the Aristotelian and 
Neo-Platonic, and, in consequence, not only distorted it in de- 
tail, but transformed it as a whole too much into a mere 
theory or view of the world. Speculation, he thought, had here 
taken the place of religion; human reason had settled the prin- 
cipal facts to suit itself, now one way, now another: and the 
matter of chief concern is in danger of becoming a mere subject 
of sport, when allegorical interpretation is allowed to make any- 
thing of anything. This interpreting, with its various meanings, 
roused to bitter antagonism the simple sense for truth of Luther's 
German nature; with irresistible force, he opposed to it the 
simple facts, the plain literal sense. It is the recourse to history 
which would here fain exclude all philosophical speculation; 
and it is the acceptance of the fundamentally ethical character 
of Christianity which would exclude all intellectualism. Ac- 
cordingly, the characteristic peculiarity of Christianity appears 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 



261 



to be worked out in its purity, and at the same time a resump- 
tion of early, genuine Christianity to be consummated. 

That the Reformation was no simple restoration but a devel- 
opment and a revolution scarcely admits of dispute. In its search 
for an immediate relation of the soul to God, and for a pure 
inwardness of the moral and religious life, it might well make 
appeal to early Christianity; for early Christianity really pos- 
sessed those elements. But it possessed them along with others; 
it had not yet given them the exclusiveness, the repellent power, 
which they received from Luther. Mediaeval Christianity, too, 
by no means rejected immediacy and inwardness, although the 
place which these occupied had been still further restricted, and 
they were forced to adapt themselves even more to tendencies 
of another sort. The innovation accomplished by the Refor- 
mation lay, therefore, neither in its introduction of something 
entirely new, nor in its resuscitation of something wholly discarded 
and buried, but rather in the fact that between the two ele- 
ments which had hitherto peacefully existed side by side, be- 
tween, namely, a religion of pure inwardness and the religion of 
the ecclesiastical system, there had sprung up an irreconcilable 
opposition ; and this opposition was due to the fact that that in- 
wardness had become far more an affair of the whole man, in- 
deed, an all-dominating force. That is the way in which great 
changes in the religious world are wont to take place: there is 
a desire to restore to present consciousness something original; 
but by fixing attention upon it alone, it becomes intensified, 
everything opposed to it is eliminated, an inner transformation 
results, life's centre of gravity is shifted, and thus the sense of 
the original also is radically altered. Hence the Reformation 
does not restore the old, but inaugurates a new, Christianity. 

The new character of the Reformation is attested by changes 
of a very decisive sort. The more prominent position accorded 
to the inner life elevates the spiritual above the sensuous and 
gives it greater freedom; the confusion of the two, transmitted 
to Christianity by declining antiquity, and still further con- 



282 CHRISTIANITY 

founded by the Middle Ages, now disappears. The sensuous 
was thus absorbed into the more fundamental spiritual process 
as an essential constituent belonging to its full reality. Such a 
fusion placed the religious life in danger of becoming seriously 
materialised ; much resulted which, with a freer detachment of 
the spiritual from the sensuous, would certainly have appeared 
as magic, as crass superstition and insufferable idolatry. The 
Reformation consummated such an emancipation of the spir- 
itual, and at the same time degraded the sensuous into a mere 
image and symbol. The liberation thus brought about appeared 
both as the true fulfilment of a religion which required that God 
should be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and as an elevation 
of life to manly independence and majesty, as compared with the 
state of nonage. This sharper demarcation of the sensuous and 
the spiritual had a profound effect also upon the ethical and the 
practical. For the removal of the confusion between them led 
directly to the rejection of the ascetic ideal of life, which sees 
something evil in the sensuous as such. That view was right, 
so far as the refined and corrupt sensuousness of the latest 
period of antiquity is concerned; but it lost its justification 
when applied to the more natural and spontaneous, although 
robust and even crude, sensuousness of modern peoples. With- 
out such a new environment, the Reformation would hardly 
have won emancipation from the monastic ideal of life. 

Evident, also, is a general trend, not only of religion but of 
the whole of life, toward greater activity. That this activity is 
essentially unlike the restlessness of mere natural vigour, and 
that no mere insolent lust of antagonism or wanton mania for 
innovation enticed Luther into this momentous struggle, are 
facts which only the crassest misunderstanding of his nature 
and purpose could mistake. In reality, the whole development 
of life here bore within itself the consciousness of unconditional 
dependence upon infinite power; all strength admittedly came 
from God; and nothing but solicitude for the salvation of the 
immortal soul and for the rescue of Christian truth could have 
forced the breach with an ecclesiastical system which had been 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 283 

hitherto so passionately venerated. That which is new and 
all-important, however, is the fact that the creation of a new life 
peculiarly one's own was looked upon as the chief result of the 
Divine activity ; the direct relation to a transcendent power en- 
ables man himself to transcend the world and frees him from 
all human dependence. Henceforth he does not need to look 
for the support of life without, having found the surest support 
of all in the inner presence of infinite love and grace. Piety, too, 
assumes a more active character, and outgrows that blind de- 
votion which earlier Christianity esteemed so highly. At the 
same time, the hierarchical system, which found the essence of 
religion in a vast structure outside the soul, is shaken to its foun- 
dations. Luther and the other reformers did this system much 
injustice, by imputing to its human representatives as a per- 
sonal fault what in fact was only a necessary consequence of his- 
torical conditions, and by treating particular defects of the age 
as permanent characteristics of the system. But that the above 
historical conditions had passed away, or at least were begin- 
ning to disappear, the Reformation showed in a convincing 
manner; whatever impossibilities and errors lay concealed in 
the imposing hierarchical organisation were certain to be dis- 
tinctly felt the moment that the inner world of the spirit was 
recognised as the true abode of God's kingdom, and the imme- 
diate presence of this kingdom was found in the soul of each 
individual. It now became evident that the separation of the 
substance of religion from the life of the soul endangered the 
spirit of religion; that it tended toward the substitution of the 
Church for God and ecclesiasticism for religion. If the indi- 
vidual spontaneity of man is excluded as far as possible from 
the religious life, goodness and the divine influences can be im- 
parted to him only from without and in a miraculous manner; 
there is danger both of coarse materialism and of inner deca- 
dence; the bounds between religion and magic become oblit- 
erated. Moreover, all the efforts to disconnect the Church from 
the standpoint of individuals cannot prevent human ideas and 
interests from entering into its structure; in particular, the idea 



284 CHRISTIANITY 

of power takes a dangerous hold upon activity, so that the osten- 
sibly divine becomes strongly humanised. In contrast with the 
above, the Reformation upholds the view that man can never 
be raised above the merely human except by a divine miracle 
wrought within his inner nature, and that only upon this inner 
foundation can the kingdom of God among men be built. 

That means a life and death struggle with the older way of 
thinking; a new epoch accordingly dawns for humanity. To 
acknowledge the higher character of this new movement is by 
no means equivalent to the declaration that it is superior in all 
respects. Much that was valuable in the old was sacrificed, 
since the rejection of all usages is an undeniable abuse; e. g., 
is it necessary that the monastic life, a life withdrawn from the 
world and devoted solely to the aims of the spirit, be discarded 
along with double morality and justification by works ? More- 
over, in certain vital points, the old conserved the necessary re- 
quirements of religion much better than the new. E. g., the 
former more vigorously defended the indispensable indepen- 
dence of the religious, as against the political, community; it 
more energetically resisted a merely secular development of civi- 
lisation, a decline into mere expediency and utility. But the 
immaturity, and even the errors, of the new movement, cannot 
preclude the admission that in it a higher principle has come 
into existence, a principle which, at first intended only as a re- 
ligious one, must eventually transform the whole of life. 

The immaturity of the Reformation is indeed the more in need 
of emphasis, the higher the estimate placed upon the signifi- 
cance of the change. Least surprising is the fact that the new 
could not wholly free itself from the old, but perpetuated much 
that did not accord with its own nature. Thus, the shifting of 
the centre of life to the sphere of moral conduct would neces- 
sarily have led to an examination and transformation of that 
world of thought, so largely based on Greek speculation, which 
is preserved in the dogmas of the early Church. So, too, con- 
firming the spiritual character of Christianity would have ne- 
cessitated the eradicating of anthropomorphism from religious 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 285 

ideas and emotions; but anthropomorphism is rather strength- 
ened than otherwise in the doctrine of an angry God de- 
manding satisfaction, and in the doctrines of the atonement 
and of vicarious suffering. 

Likewise, in its inner character, the new often has not attained 
the perfect elaboration which would accord with its own funda- 
mental aim. The great innovation demands that the spiritual 
life of man should form a new unity above all special activities; 
and the whole of life can be transformed only in case the 
moral task results in an elevation of the whole of man's world, 
and is not confined to a special domain. Such an aim is oper- 
ative and exerts a certain force in the movement, but it is not 
worked out cleanly and symmetrically. It often appears as if 
the intention were merely to transfer the focus of life from the 
intellect to the feelings and the will; as e. g., Melanchthon calls 
the "Heart with its emotions the most important and the prin- 
cipal part of man." There is danger that the movement may 
veer too much into the merely psychological and subjective, that 
the deepening of the moral life may remain too much confined 
to individuals, and not extend its influence beyond the inner na- 
ture to the whole work of civilisation. The result is a dualism 
in life : on the one side, a religion consisting merely of a certain 
subjective disposition and mood; on the other, a cultivated life 
possessing no relation to ultimate questions. With Luther him- 
self, the belief that the end of the world is near at hand surely 
also tended to the same result; for whoever believes that, can- 
not well undertake the upbuilding of a new order of life. Conse- 
quently, the activity which here appears in the deepest things of 
life is not disseminated through life's whole extent; on the con- 
trary, passive endurance of this evil world, a submission to ex- 
isting powers, an acceptance of the maxim, "Be silent, suffer, 
refrain, and endure!" are often made to appear as the right 
attitude. Thus acquiescing in the irrational world, Lutheranism 
exhibited far less power and efficiency in dealing with general 
conditions than did the other branch of the Reformation. 

But not only was the new life immature, it contained within 



286 CHRISTIANITY 

itself an unyielding and, in the end, unendurable contradiction. 
The religious life was to be based upon a direct relation to God, 
and found, accordingly, in pure inwardness. But, at the same 
time, it was necessary to guard at any cost against its falling 
under the power of subjective caprice and so of losing its truth; 
with good right, therefore, Luther demands an immovable cer- 
titude founded upon fact, corroborating the inner certitude and 
giving strength for the conflict with a hostile world. This su- 
perior and indubitable certitude can be sought to-day only 
within the life of the spirit itself, in a new stage which directly 
evinces a divine reality. But Luther, under the conditions of 
his time, could not well find such certainty, such a firm foothold, 
elsewhere than in an historical fact, i. e., a fact lying within his- 
tory and historically transmitted. He accepted as such fact the 
Incarnation of God in Christ and the Atonement of love; in 
view of its unintelligibility by the powers of reason, this fact 
must not only be certain in itself, but it must be handed down 
to us by sure guarantees and in a manner excluding all doubt. 
Hence, the craving for unimpeachable witnesses and sanctions. 
Such a secure support Luther found above all in the Bible, as 
the "Word of God"; he found it" also in the common teaching of 
the early Church; he found it, lastly, in the sacraments. All 
subjective interpretation of these evidences, all dissipation of 
them into mere notions, must be prevented. Thus a principal 
part of belief is the unconditional authority of the Scriptures, 
coupled with a return to the literal sense of the text, which is 
assumed to be something simple and intelligible to all. "This 
above all must be incontestable for a Christian, that the Holy 
Scriptures are a spiritual light, far clearer than the sun itself, 
especially in all that concerns salvation and what is necessary." 
The dread of deviation from the letter, and the constant de- 
mand for something tangible, and something exempt from in- 
terpretation and discussion, furnish an explanation also of the 
degeneration into magic of the doctrine of the sacraments, some- 
thing which Luther elsewhere so energetically combated. He 
is here in danger of ascribing full reality only to a mixture of the 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 287 

sensuous and the spiritual, and thus of relapsing into the medi- 
aeval way of confounding them. 

There is a contradiction in all this, which the arbitrary fiat of 
the powerful man might indeed suppress, but could not solve. 
Where the religious life is found in a wholly direct relation to 
God, the historical element may indeed be an indispensable 
means of the awakening and education of man, but, as incapa- 
ble of being immediately experienced, it ought not to be made 
a part of faith itself. And where, as with Luther, salvation is 
essentially connected with an historical fact, there results a fatal 
discord, which must involve all the fundamental concepts. 
Thus, faith is now not merely the unconditional trust of the 
whole soul in the infinite love and grace, but also a compliant 
acceptance of a number of authoritatively transmitted doctrines 
which are in direct conflict with reason. So, too, the Word is 
not merely God's own saving act, but also the documentary 
definition of it in the biblical books. From the fact that a 
purely inward religious life was thus made to depend upon 
something which could not become an object of immediate ex- 
perience, there have resulted a great deal of spiritual oppression 
and many heavy burdens of conscience. Moreover, Luther's 
historical position assumed a contradictory aspect through the 
fact that he outwardly attacked in the severest manner the same 
views which, in a somewhat modified form, he was obliged to 
include in his own system of thought. He aimed at emancipa- 
tion from ecclesiastical authority, yet was forced to introduce 
authority of another kind ; he sought to dispense with all intel- 
lectualism, yet ended with intellectualism of another sort, since 
instead of speculation and mysticism he required a knowledge 
of historical data; in fact, the Church, with Luther, was upon 
the point of becoming pre-eminently a doctrinal association, a 
mere school of the pure Word. Luther had assailed Rome in the 
name of freedom and pure spirituality, yet he was soon forced 
to champion authority and the letter, in opposition to the 
"Zealots," the "Anabaptists," the "enthusiasts," and the 
"fanatics"; and he did so with harsh severity and not without 



288 CHRISTIANITY 

injustice. The appeal to the spirit, which was what first made 
his own position possible, he turned into a bitter reproach of 
others. "But, my good friend, what does the spirit amount to? 
I have also been in the spirit, and have also seen the spirit." 
Consequently, ecclesiastical Protestantism contains this con- 
tradiction : in the inner uplift which it gave, it began a work 
calculated to revolutionise the world; but in the execution of its 
task, it again fell under the influence of the body of thought 
whose dominion it had sought to break. 

Luther himself, however, arrived at a middle position, which 
was not free from caprice, and which he imposed upon his age 
with rude severity: a particularly grievous oppression resulted 
here from the fact that, on the one hand, the personal conviction 
of each individual was appealed to, and, upon the other, the 
decision was strictly prescribed, and any deviation therefrom 
stigmatised as an offence. 

Yet this contradiction, which not only appears such to-day, 
but was one from the outset, was, under the prevailing conditions, 
an unavoidable necessity; the unparalleled confusion of the times 
would have created the danger of a general disintegration, had 
not an iron hand drawn a middle course, and defended it right 
and left regardless of consequences, thus at once preserving his- 
torical continuity and making progress. There lay something 
deeply tragic in the fact that the new movement could establish 
itself historically only through a contradiction with its own in- 
most nature; and Luther himself was the principal sufferer. 
He imposed upon others nothing which he did not first impose 
upon himself; if he assumed a high-handed and domineer- 
ing attitude toward others, he did it chiefly because he had the 
severest trials of his own to overcome, which often "wrung from 
him the cold sweat"; because his conflict with others was at 
the same time a conflict with himself. And precisely in these 
conflicts, the transparent veracity, the perfect loyalty and gen- 
uineness of the man, are revealed with special distinctness. 
He devoted the highest conceivable earnestness to eternal 
things, and by such an earnestness of his whole personality he 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 289 

afforded a secure support to mankind for centuries; possessed 
at once of great power and childlike simplicity, and of a rugged 
and rough manner, he stands ever memorable before the eyes 
of the German people, an impressive admonisher exhorting to 
constant watchfulness for the soul. And, just as he personally 
fought his way triumphantly through all the confusions, doubts, 
and dangers to a position of absolute security and deep peace, 
so his work, aside from all that is doubtful and ephemeral, rep- 
resents a type of life which is of permanent significance. An in- 
exhaustible well-spring of life is here disclosed in the inner 
movements and even the conflicting emotions of the soul; hum- 
ble trust and a courageous, vigorous spirit here merge into one; 
man is brought into the immediate presence of the Infinite and 
Eternal, and so exalted to incomparable dignity and worth. Above 
all, spiritual life now becomes a strife for and against worlds. 
Inasmuch as independence, the sense of freedom, and courageous 
living are here ennobled, indeed sanctified, by being grounded in 
infinite love and grace, an altogether new view of the world is 
revealed, and a fundamentally new relation to reality estab- 
lished. In this sense, the Reformation became the animating 
soul of the modern world, the principal motive force of its prog- 
ress. In this larger sense, the greatest thinkers and poets of the 
last century, men like Kant and Goethe, have gratefully felt and 
acknowledged themselves to be its followers; in truth, every 
phase of modern life which is not directly or indirectly con- 
nected with the Reformation has something insipid and paltry 
about it. 

But even in its narrower, ecclesiastical form, the problems 
and conflicts largely spring from the fact that a higher aim per- 
vades the whole, that the task is increased, that a closer relation 
of man's nature to the source of truth and love is sought. 
Whoever concedes that this deepening has taken place will 
honour the spirit of the whole, notwithstanding its immaturity, 
and will welcome the dawning of a new and more genuine life. 
The mediaeval system embraced the most diverse interests, 
and cleverly adjusted them to one another and combined their 



2QO CHRISTIANITY 

results. This marvellous system of inner and outer accommo- 
dation, this incomparable masterpiece of organisation, with its 
accumulated knowledge of mankind and its vast historical ex- 
perience, possessed an undoubted advantage in its effects 
upon social life and upon the visible conditions of existence; it 
had a broader historical foundation, greater rationality, and a 
riper culture. The new movement can claim superiority only 
where the belief prevails that, as Luther expresses it, "not for 
the price of the whole world can a single soul be bought"; 
where man accepts the momentous tasks of life in joyful trust; 
where, besides, in the face of the severest conflicts and the clash 
of the deepest human interests, there is a recognition both of the 
immeasurable worth of personality and of the establishment of 
a kingdom of independent spirituality. 

Hence, the uncompromising alternative which characterises 
the view of life developed by the Reformation, particularly in 
Luther's conception of it, may serve also for its own criticism. 
Whoever rejects the above deepening in spirituality as super- 
fluous or impossible, cannot look upon the Reformation other- 
wise than as a leap in the dark, a stirring up of wild passion and 
fatal schism; whoever, on the contrary, admits the possibility, 
the inevitableness, of the change, must accept it, with all its un- 
solved problems, as a mighty deed of liberation and as the dawn 
of a new day. 

(b) Zwingli and Calvin 

Although Luther unquestionably forms the spiritual head of 
the Reformation, and the development which took place in his 
personality must be accepted as the culmination of the whole 
movement, the leading men of the Reformed Church possessed 
far too much independence in the influence they exerted upon 
life to be passed over here in silence. Our brief account, which 
in the main follows Dilthey, has also made use, in the part on 
Zwingli, of the excellent work by Stahelin. 

As compared with Luther, Zwingli was much more closely 
related to Humanism and to the general culture of his time; he 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 291 

was also more strongly impelled toward an active co-operation 
in contemporary affairs; he did not break with the world in the 
radical manner of Luther, nor impart to the religious life such 
a defiant self-sufficiency, nor ascribe to it such a superior maj- 
esty. But, although there is less depth in the whole, many con- 
tradictions and much asperity disappear, the religious side is 
more closely interwoven with practical life, and the world of 
thought becomes far more rational, than with the founder and 
hero of the Reformation. 

" What distinguished Zwingli from Luther in the treatment of 
faith is the closer union in which for him the religious and the 
moral aspects of faith stood, and which, accordingly, led him to 
look upon the relation of law and Gospel rather on the side of 
their affinity than on that of their opposition"; he did not want 
to recognise any other reformation of the Church "than one 
through which both the moral and social life of the people 
should be permeated and transformed by the renewing and 
sanctifying power of the Gospel" (Stahelin). In harmony with 
this is the fact that, as regards Christ, he emphasised the ethical 
and the ideal human side, and did not dwell merely upon the 
Passion. A more rational and freer mode of thought appeared 
not only in his doctrine of the sacraments, but also in a sharper 
demarcation between original sin and actual sin, in the receding 
of the conceptions of the devil and of the end of the world, and 
in the extension of the idea of revelation so as to include not 
Christendom only, but the whole of mankind. 

But, although Zwingli takes pains everywhere to point out a 
relation of man to God, he sees in this relationship no mere 
natural endowment of man but a revelation of God ; with a de- 
cisiveness equal to that of Luther and Melanchthon, he rejects 
the scholastic doctrine of a natural knowledge of God antece- 
dent to faith. Likewise, Christianity retains a central position 
and a unique character. For in the appearance of Christ lay 
the last and the profoundest revelation of perfect goodness. 
Henceforth the entire dependence of man upon God is clear, as 
is also the fact that this relation affords him complete blessed- 



292 CHRISTIANITY 

ness. The true religion, accordingly, is this: that man finds 
himself dependent solely upon God and trusts solely in His 
goodness. "This is the well-spring of our religion, that we rec- 
ognise in God, Himself uncreated, the creator of all things, 
who possesses all and freely gives all." 

Consequently, everything must vanish that comes between us 
and God ; to set one's hope upon anything else than upon God 
Himself is a superstition; "Such an unassailable and infallible 
power as faith ought to be can never be based upon anything 
created. For how could that which at one time did not exist be 
a foundation for our trust?" The activity of the invisible, of 
that which is superior to every form of nature, is perfectly evi- 
dent to inner consciousness; " God's greatest miracle is that He 
places Himself in relation with the human heart, so that we 
recognise Him as our Father." To such a view, the old doc- 
trine of the means of grace, a good deal of which is preserved 
in Luther's doctrine of the Lord's Supper, must appear as mere 
magic, and hence be rejected. 

But dependence upon God by no means destroys man's own 
activity; rather, man should devote himself with his whole 
strength to becoming a vessel for the Divine life and action, in 
order thus to bear a likeness to the tireless activity of God, 
through whom and in whom all things live, and move, and 
have their being. "To act, in universal relationship with the 
all-comprehensive highest active force, is the soul of this sys- 
tem." "Since God is a force," Zwingli says in one instance, 
" He will not surfer that one whose heart He has drawn to Himself 
should be idle." "Only the faithful know how Christ allows 
his followers no leisure, and how serene and happy they are in 
their work." "It is not the duty of a Christian to talk in a 
grand way about doctrines, but steadily to co-operate with God 
in the accomplishment of great and difficult things" (after Dil- 
they). Even the doctrine of election by grace, which at the first 
view appears completely to annul the independence of the agent, 
in these relations rather enhances his importance and activity. 
For where God Himself directly decides upon the salvation or 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 293 

damnation of the individual, the immediate relation to Him is 
everything, the inestimable worth of the religious process within 
the individual is obvious, the believer can feel himself wholly 
secure in God and know that he is the instrument of His per- 
fectly good and omnipotent will. Moreover, with Zwingli, "the 
thought of rejection noticeably recedes behind that of election 
to blessedness " (Stahelin). 

Thus the idea of an active and manly Christianity, made 
prominent by the Reformation, was developed here in a par- 
ticularly effective form; that is, religion is continually being 
transformed into moral conduct and thereby sanctioned, all the 
other aspects of life unite themselves harmoniously with it, and 
the individual has his independent task in the life of the com- 
munity : it is a fresh and glad spirit which emanates from Zwingli 
in every direction. Even if it be in good part true that the reason 
why everything here fits together so smoothly and assumes such 
clear outlines is that Zwingli does not feel the dark side of life 
and the contradictions of our spiritual existence with anything 
like the force, nor fight his way through them with such deep 
emotions, as did Luther; and even though his practical ten- 
dency might easily result in a confusion of religion and politics, 
indeed, of religion and the constabulary, still, the peculiar sig- 
nificance of this simple and ^healthy, fresh and buoyant Chris- 
tianity should have permanent recognition. 

It is in another guise that the fundamental idea of reformed 
Christianity appears in the case of Calvin. Born to organise 
and to rule, his mind is severely methodical and unswerving in 
its logical consistency; every detail is fitted into a single struc- 
ture of thought. Yet not only the form but also the fundamental 
feeling is a different one. The type of thought is theocentric, in 
the manner of Augustine; the honour of God is the central idea; 
all creatures subserve His glory; it is the absolute will of God 
which determines every thing, and in a manner unintelligible to 
man. All doubt, and even all natural self-confidence, are an 
offence against the majesty of God; the whole of man's life 
should be dedicated to God, to whom it has belonged from the 



294 CHRISTIANITY 

outset; God works everywhere without mediation, hence all 
secondary causes and human instrumentalities drop out; every- 
thing should be eliminated from worship which degrades the 
purely spiritual essence into what is visible and merely repre- 
sentative. 

Yet, even here, the activity of the individual person is fully 
preserved, indeed, if that be possible, still further increased; just 
as God Himself is looked upon as the highest, unceasingly oper- 
ative activity, so, too, the service of God must be that of an 
active life. But activity loses the character of radiant gladness 
which it possessed with Zwingli; it assumes a stern and austere, 
indeed a mournful and gloomy, aspect; life becomes a hard and 
unrelenting struggle to realise the purposes of God. Whatever is 
apart from that struggle, all delight in natural things, is forbidden 
and condemned as a robbery of the Highest. " This religiosity is 
distinguished from that of Luther by the rough duties of a war- 
rior of God under strict discipline which fills every moment of 
life. It is distinguished from Catholic devoutness by the power 
of independent action which it produces. But its character is 
determined by the way in which the religious observance of the 
whole life results from the principle of theocracy and election by 
grace, by the way in which every direct and indirect relation to 
other men finds its motive in that theocracy, and, finally, by the 
way in which a proud severity toward the enemies of God is 
here justified on religious grounds" (Dilthey). 

Closely connected with this affirmation of the omnipotent will 
of God and of the unconditional obedience of man is the re- 
sumption of Old Testament ideas which became evident in the 
life of the reformed communities. This life is full of deep ear- 
nestness and is apparently joyless, but it possesses an indom- 
itable energy; there is not only the strength of patience, but 
also the impulse to act; it confers an immeasurable power both 
upon the individual and upon the self-sacrificing congregation, 
the chosen instrument of God. Nowhere else was there so 
much effected toward elevating the Reformation into a world 
power; and although here, too, the Church eventually took 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 295 

refuge in an orthodox creed, it was from this branch of the 
Reformation that the mightiest impulses toward civic freedom 
and freedom of thought arose; and it was here that, out of the 
bosom of the Reformation, modern life won its way to inde- 
pendence. 

II. CHRISTIANITY AND THE LAST CENTURIES 

However unreservedly we may accept the necessity of the 
Reformation, and however high an estimate we may place upon 
its importance, the fact remains that it profoundly altered the 
general conditions of life, and also that serious evils resulted 
from the rupture. The antagonism between the two confessions 
roused the passions peculiar to religion to the highest pitch, and 
precluded for the time being any general interest in the work of 
civilisation. Occupied in refuting an opponent, men often for- 
got, as indeed they still do to-day, the content of their own lives. 
Moreover, the separation brought with it, for both sides, the 
danger of narrowness. On the part of Catholicism, the in- 
creased authority, concentration, and stability might easily re- 
sult in a narrowing of the characters of men and in a dread of 
freedom of any sort. On the Protestant side, on the contrary, 
the supreme solicitude for the individual soul might readily 
cause indifference toward all intellectual interests, split religion 
up into a number of sectarian doctrines, and produce much can- 
tankerous obstinacy on the part of individuals. Moreover, the 
great historical connections which the Church had thus far pre- 
served, connections reaching far back into the early history of 
the Orient, were here lost. In their stead, Protestantism pos- 
sessed the advantage of greater freedom, and of a history richer 
in content; above all, the enhanced worth of personality and the 
increase of personal responsibility gave it great power and the 
capacity continually to stir new spiritual depths. 

Catholicism likewise was not left unchanged by the flight of 
time; a close inspection reveals far greater modification, and far 
more variety, than is superficially visible. In particular, it is 



296 CHRISTIANITY 

traversed by the opposition between a system which aimed 
mainly at power and dominion and was little concerned with the 
inner state of the soul, between Ultramontanism, in short, and 
a purely religious belief which regarded religion as an end in it- 
self. The two tendencies indeed are often inseparably united in 
the same individual ; yet in themselves there is a wide divergence 
between them, and Catholicism owes its inner life wholly to the 
second tendency. In spite, however, of the inwardness, ten- 
derness, and delicacy which the latter gave to the spiritual life 
of the individual — suffice it to recall Pascal — it was at a decided 
disadvantage in its effect upon society as a whole, when com- 
pared with the rigid organisation of Ultramontanism. The 
future alone can tell whether from this stand-point a progress of 
life as a whole is possible. 

The antitheses in the case of Protestantism are more obvious ; 
they spring from its innermost nature. Protestantism originated 
through the fact that a personality of overwhelming native force 
arose with mighty power and opposed to the ecclesiastical 
order the compelling demands of its own inner nature as a 
higher divine right. It cannot renounce this personal origin, 
nor the commanding place which personality has held in it, with- 
out surrendering its own raison d'etre. But at the same time a 
special content, a peculiar form of Christianity, was developed 
and set up as a norm for all. This form clearly disclosed the 
contrasts latent in Christianity, opposed to the earlier form, as 
being too rationalistic, a tendency toward the ethical and his- 
torical, and, by establishing an immediate relation of the soul 
to God, gave to life a profound depth. Still, it was a particu- 
lar form that was here developed; it required a particular con- 
dition of the soul; it was also modified in various ways by the 
individuality, the natural disposition, even the temperament, 
of the founders. Would it not necessarily become an oppressive 
bondage, if this form were to be binding upon all? would not 
succeeding generations lay claim to the same right to satisfy their 
religious needs which the Reformers exercised, and without which 
there would have been no Reformation ? 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 297 

Protestantism would hardly have attained the position in the 
modern world which it has attained, had it not formed an alli- 
ance with modern civilisation, and were it not, in so far, a re- 
ligion of civilisation. It is presented to us as such a religion by 
German literature at the period of its highest development. 
The specifically ecclesiastical element is here as far as possible 
eliminated; the sharpness of the contrasts is softened under the 
influence of a more joyful life; more cheerfulness and trust in 
human nature arise, and man gains both greatness and worth in 
himself and an inner relation to others. At the same time re- 
ligion in its widest sense, as Panentheism, continues to exert an 
influence, and adds to the earnestness and deeper meaning of 
life. A wide divergence from early Protestantism is here un- 
mistakable; the whole character of life is essentially altered. 
Since the earlier form persists, and even puts forth new life, the 
Protestantism of modern days embraces two different religions, 
the difficulty of keeping which tolerably united increases in 
proportion as the historical sense of the nineteenth century 
brings the peculiarity and the antagonism of both forms more 
distinctly before our eyes. But this duality is a source of strength 
in Protestantism as well as a source of weakness; it is only where 
there is breadth like this that it is capable of keeping the two 
poles of modern life in a fruitful relation; and even if Protes- 
tantism shows itself quite unprepared to grapple with the above 
inner antagonism, the honesty and the sincerity with which it 
takes up the problems, and the whole-souled energy which it 
devotes to their solution, remain in themselves something great. 

Their importance, indeed, can be fully appreciated only by 
one who recognises the severity of the conflict with modern civi- 
lisation into which Christianity has fallen. In its rich unfolding 
of life the modern world has brought an untold wealth of things 
new and great, whose influence no one can escape and whose 
fruits we all enjoy. But with this incontestable gain there is 
closely interwoven a characteristic tendency which is deeply in- 
volved in doubt and conflict. Since the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century the modern world has wrought out a new type 



298 CHRISTIANITY 

of life which departs widely from the Christian. A powerful 
life-impulse forces the thinking and the activity of man more 
and more into the world which Christianity regarded as a lower 
one; in this world reason reigns or, wherever it is not yet pres- 
ent, the labour of man seeks to create it; forces spring up ad 
infinitum, and the increase of power becomes the highest and 
all-sufficient goal of life. The greater the strength and self- 
consciousness which this new type acquires, the more evident 
it becomes that it is incompatible with Christianity, in fact, that 
the fundamental tendencies of the two run directly counter to 
each other. Their peaceable and friendly co-operation, such as 
existed in earlier times, becomes impossible ; a clear understand- 
ing is increasingly necessary; continually harsher is the rejec- 
tion of Christianity by those who follow the specifically modern 
tendency. But just as the danger to Christianity seems to be 
greatest, a turn of affairs completely changes the situation and 
again starts a movement in its direction. Faith in the infalli- 
bility and self-sufficiency of modern civilisation begins to waver; 
modern life itself presents so much that is dark and evil, and 
the increase of power at the same time yields such a strong sense 
of inner emptiness, that the whole conduct of human life be- 
comes again a problem, and we are forced once more to fight 
for a significant content of our existence. And in the search for 
new aims Christianity, with its spiritual depths and its power 
of reconciling the great antitheses, may very well assume a new 
importance; it may appear that it has by no means exhausted 
itself, but that in a new form it can still call forth fresh 
forces which are indispensable to the aims and struggles of 
mankind. 

Further evidence of this may be seen in the attitude of the 
modern thinkers toward Christianity, in so far as they are of a 
constructive and substantial sort, and do not stop with merely 
clever reflections and destructive criticism. Their attitude 
toward the ecclesiastical form of Christianity is certainly un- 
sympathetic, if not hostile; yet no one of them wishes to give up 
Christianity entirely; rather each seeks to bring it somehow 



MODERN CHRISTIANITY 299 

into relation with his own belief, and so through such a connec- 
tion to strengthen the latter; and it is precisely with the best in 
his own thought that he strives to connect Christianity. In this 
way, each one fashions his own Christianity — Spinoza and 
Leibniz, Locke and Rousseau, Kant and Fichte, Hegel and 
Schopenhauer — and these several views taken together give a 
true picture of the intellectual movement of modern times. If, 
then, in spite of the differences, modern thinkers all adhere to 
Christianity in some form, they must, indeed, find or feel in it 
something which modern civilisation of itself cannot create. In 
truth, it would be easy to show that in the work of them all 
there is a spiritual depth and inwardness and an ideal estimate 
of things which is less a product of their own thought than it is 
a result of the traditional associations of the Christian life. 

This borrowed element was earlier taken for granted, and it 
merged, undistinguished, with elements of another kind; now, 
its separation and the crisis which has come upon civilisation as 
a whole, compel it to show itself more distinctly and within more 
clearly defined boundaries; now, moreover, Christianity must 
subject itself to self-examination, and distinguish more clearly 
between the part which belongs to a particular age, and the part 
which is able to encompass all ages and continually to bring 
forth new results. 

Christianity has not spent itself in the forms which have thus 
far appeared. In the first centuries, it powerfully and consist- 
ently promoted ethical concentration and the regeneration of 
life; but the circles to which its influence extended stood at first 
outside the civilised world, and its efforts showed more sub- 
jective warmth than intellectual depth. With the further decline 
of antiquity came the period of Christian triumph; but Chris- 
tianity developed into a universal system only under the resist- 
less sway of the Greco-Roman world, which also brought with 
it all the evils of a weary and languid age. The Middle Ages 
presented the more positive task of educating the new peoples, 
but the conditions of the time gave to this work an external and 
compulsory character; the inward life languished beneath the 



3 oo CHRISTIANITY 

sway of organisation; spirituality wasted away under the pro- 
nounced materialism of the religious life. In opposition to these 
tendencies the Reformation arose, and by simplifying Christian- 
ity succeeded also in rejuvenating it; but we have just been en- 
gaged in showing how little the Reformation meant a definitive 
conclusion. Christianity next had to protect the deeper content 
of life from the secular and self-conscious civilisation of the 
modern world; latterly, this civilisation has itself reached a 
crisis, from which only a radical deepening of life and an inner 
renovation of man can rescue it: ever more irresistibly are we 
driven back from the ceaseless activities of civilisation to the 
problems of the soul, to the struggle to make life significant and 
to preserve a spiritual existence. These questions can hardly 
be taken up and profitably discussed without the problem of 
religion coming to the fore; and in the new century this prob- 
lem will presumably more and more dominate men's minds. 
In the result — which may not be reached without serious catas- 
trophes — it will indeed appear that Christianity not only has a 
great past but also a great future. 



PART THIRD 
THE MODERN WORLD 



A. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MODERN 

WORLD 

A general characterisation of the modern world seems more 
difficult to-day than ever before. For the very development of 
the modern idea has originated an ever-growing number of new 
problems, and it has become more and more difficult to define, 
in set terms, what we mean by that idea. Postponing, then, any 
attempt at the formulation of general principles, let us take as 
our starting point the historical conditions which prevailed at the 
outset of the modern period. The dawn of a new life was ren- 
dered inevitable by the fact that the traditional order had been 
shaped by a set of circumstances and feelings which were the 
product of their time and could not possibly remain in force for- 
ever. The peculiarity of that older outlook was the way in 
which it connected Christianity — a Christianity condensed into 
an ecclesiastical organisation — with the ancient culture. This 
culture again was the work of special nations, and at the same 
time the expression of a particular stage of spiritual develop- 
ment. With the appearance of new nations it might easily 
seem strange and unsatisfying. As the spiritual life deepened in 
essential respects, it could not but drive out the old dogmatism. 
Now new nations had in fact stepped into the world-arena — 
chief among them the Germanic races — and they were begin- 
ning to make their spiritual individuality increasingly felt. 
Again, Christianity itself had become more inward, a change 
which, when fully realised, could not fail to destroy the old easy, 
happy relations with antiquity which had seemed so natural to 
the Middle Ages. In these facts there lay already the germs of 
important reforms. But the change which did most to bring 
about the final rupture was the revolution in men's disposition 

3°3 



304 THE MODERN WORLD 

and feeling toward life. The old dogmatism with its claim to 
finality and its submission to ecclesiastical control corresponded 
to the desires of men who were weary and self -distrustful, and 
therefore credulous toward authority and eager after signs. 
Now, however, new life and fresh courage had awakened ; men 
willed to stand on their feet and look their problems in the face; 
they must seek new ways for themselves. The break with the 
past and the realisation of a new life had become a pressing 
necessity. 

And in the break itself there were already indications of the 
direction which the new movement would take: it bade fair to 
be the direct opposite of the position hitherto maintained. In 
the first place it could start only from individuals, which meant 
for the individual a position of independence and ascendency 
instead of his being, as in the Middle Ages, merely a member of 
certain given corporations, obliged to live according to their 
ordinances. Secondly, the individual who had rejected the 
traditional culture as unsatisfactory was bound to believe in the 
possibility of progress. Lastly, it was impossible to withstand 
an established order sanctioned by history, without an active 
faith in a reason unfettered by time and place and not limited, 
as in the Middle Ages, to the work of annotating and expounding 
historical tradition. Thus, from the very beginning the modern 
period was inoculated with a germ of individualism, of belief in 
progress and in reason. Taken as a whole, it stands over 
against the mediaeval system of Authority as a system of Free- 
dom. 

Butthe chief characteristic of modern endeavour is its interest in 
the world and its vigorous appropriation of the world's resources. 
This is in obvious contrast to the closing period of antiquity 
and the time in which Christianity took shape. Then tired hu- 
manity found a support and meaning for life only in an escape 
from the visible world into a kingdom of faith and mystical emo- 
tion: in its effort to reach an ultimate unity it had lost all joy 
in variety. Now, on the other hand, the new life-impulse 
urges us with all its force out into the world; we want a larger 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 305 

life : we want to come to close quarters with things and wrestle 
with their contradictions. The sentimental life of faith and 
emotion yields place to diligent work and manly activity: the 
whole aspect of existence is transformed. But this new life 
which at first might seem so simple soon proves to be terribly 
complicated. Its aim is to bring the soul and the world into 
closest intimacy, to make life world-embracing, to draw the 
world into the very being of man ; surely no easy task, now that 
profound spiritual upheavals have so widely estranged life from 
the world, and sunk it so deeply within itself. Moreover, mod- 
ern scientific thought begins to perceive that the soul is not im- 
mediately akin to the world about us, and that the one cannot 
therefore directly influence the other, as the older view main- 
tained. If, however, a deep chasm makes itself felt between the 
two and a mutual adjustment is necessary to bridge the gulf, then 
the old simple view of reality becomes impossible; the world 
which was man's without effort, he must now build up with 
unutterable labour and toil. We already see that modern life is 
no peaceful possessing and unfolding, but rather a ceaseless 
conflict, a struggle for the very foundations of its existence. 

A sharp opposition has indeed arisen, an implacable strife. 
The desired union of soul and world may be understood in two 
radically different ways. It may be held, on the one hand, that 
the soul absorbs and assimilates the world; on the other, that 
the world absorbs and assimilates the soul. Hence arise two 
fundamentally different systems of reality: the idealistic and 
the realistic. Each is profoundly influential, and modifies 
essentially the whole aspect of existence. The soul cannot seek 
to subdue the world to itself without experiencing a widening of 
its own nature. Spiritual endeavour loosens itself from a merely 
personal standpoint, and so far as possible abstracts from the 
specific limitations of this or that nationality or religion. The 
spiritual life is now concentrated upon what is most universal in 
its nature and upon its own untrammelled energies ; it is impelled 
only by its own inward necessities. This change is more particu- 
larly noticeable in the greatly increased influence which thought 



3 o6 THE MODERN WORLD 

exercises in modern life. More than ever before is thought the 
impelling and guiding force of our civilisation. Ends and means 
are all discussed beforehand, possibilities all considered, life 
mapped out in advance and lived in anticipation. Mental con- 
structions, ideas, principles — these form the nucleus of our 
modern life; the whole realm of existence is steeped in them; 
on all sides we see theories paving the way for actual movements, 
increasing their power, inspiring them with passion. More than 
ever before is human life moulded and swayed by thought. 

But hardly less important is the transformation effected from 
the other side, arising out of the development of a world which 
stands independently over against man and, so far as possible, 
brings him under its control. All that human imagination and 
desire has projected into the things about us is now regarded as 
a distortion of their real nature and is therefore ruthlessly ex- 
pelled. Only through such rigorous elimination of the subjective 
does nature for the first time become in herself a great con- 
nected whole. For the first time man's dependence on her, — 
nay, more, the fact that he is a part of her, — receives complete 
recognition. But it is ever the influence of the outer upon the 
inner which is increasingly emphasised : the soul appears to be 
sustained entirely from without, its whole happiness seems to 
depend on its relation to the environment. Movements of this 
kind open up an inexhaustible mine of fact, and are a stimulus 
to incessant work. Now for the first time man's life and effort 
seem placed on a secure footing. Deceptive illusion is replaced 
by the full light of truth, subjective arrogance by a humble rec- 
ognition of limits. Thus we have the development of a realistic 
culture, which first wins its way to full independence, and then 
proceeds to claim exclusive rights. It even undertakes to sat- 
isfy completely the ideal needs of man, interpreting them, it is 
true, in a sense very different from that of the old tradition. So 
in modern life we have a two-sided development, two systems of 
reality with opposite tendencies and totally different content 
waging incessantly a more or less open strife. It is only a shal- 
low, smooth-faced optimism that can hope to reconcile easily and 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 307 

quickly such diametrically opposite positions. A genuine tran- 
scendence of the opposition, necessitating a thorough-going 
transformation of the whole aspect of the world, has been the 
goal aimed at on all the highest levels of modern life. But that 
no final conclusion has been obtained, nor even so much as a 
firm foothold, can scarcely be denied by any who have thrown 
themselves whole-heartedly into the confused and conflicting 
movements of the present time. 

Such an inner contradiction together with the constantly re- 
newed effort to overcome it, stamps the modern period with a 
character of incessant movement and stormy unrest. It is a 
period which not only contains individual problems without 
number; its whole being is a problem; it is continually absorbed 
in the struggle to understand its own nature, its own meaning. 
As a consequence, the life of the modern individual is incom- 
parably more unfinished, unstable and prone to disturbance 
than was the case in earlier epochs. Amid such agitations it is 
easy to understand the longing that arises for the greater rest 
and fixity of earlier times. It is the unrest of the New which, to 
the partisans of the Old, is its bitterest reproach, and the reason 
why they so emphatically reject it. 

But however comprehensible such a train of thought may be, 
it is none the less perverse. The upheavals of the age have 
brought into view a whole new realm of fact, and the entire 
character of life has fundamentally changed. Our early crudi- 
ties have been clearly exposed and we can never return to them. 
We all, without distinction of party, accept and profit by the 
great results of the new way of thinking; and this we cannot do 
without honouring the will and the effort which inspire it. The 
great perplexities in which we find ourselves are not due to the 
arbitrariness and self-assertiveness of man. They are rather 
imposed upon him by the historical evolution of the spiritual 
life. And if there has been a loss in certainty, peace and com- 
fort, there has been a corresponding gain in freedom, breadth 
and largeness. In the courageous facing of problems there is 
more truth than in that older attitude which bore the semblance 



308 THE MODERN WORLD 

of attainment without the reality, that temper which uncritically 
placed man in a class apart, that mood which attained repose 
not by vanquishing but by ignoring the contradictions of our 
existence. 

So, in spite of its uncertainty and contradictions, in spite even 
of its mistakes, we will rejoice in the new age as embodying 
a higher form of life, and in this spirit trace its strivings up- 
ward step by step, not in slavish obeisance to everything "mod- 
ern," but in eager search for the vein of truth which runs through 
all human error. 

B. THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 
I. THE RENAISSANCE 

(a) The Fundamental Characteristics oj the Renaissance 

The brilliant researches of distinguished scholars have made 
it quite clear that the Renaissance is by no means to be under- 
stood as a mere return upon classical antiquity, but first and 
foremost as a development of the modern spirit. Italy is the 
soil in which, owing to favourable circumstances, the new life 
first breaks through, so that its more general features are closely 
blent with the typical Italian peculiarities. Still it would have 
been impossible for men to feel themselves so near to classical 
antiquity and to link it so closely to their own creations, had 
there not been a real kinship in important features which allowed 
the present and the past to join hands over the gulf of the 
Middle Ages. We will first examine these common features. 

The Renaissance resembles antiquity in the value it sets upon 
the world and secular labour. The withdrawal of life into a 
cloistered seclusion remote from the world, — the final result of 
the old Christianity, — can no longer attract the eager upward 
striving of the youthful spirit. Ever more and more irresistibly 
does it feel itself drawn toward the world till its centre of gravity 
is altogether transferred thither, and the image of that other 
world grows more and more dim. This change comes about 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 309 

less through a sharp break than by a gradual transition. Re- 
ligion is not overtly attacked and disavowed, but it is stripped 
of the stern inflexible majesty with which it swayed the men of 
the Middle Ages. It acquires something akin to the immediacy 
that belongs to the intuitions and impressions of sense. Its di- 
vinities take on a purely human shape, and move as friends in 
our midst. In intercourse with the divine, human nature is ex- 
alted; the distance between the two worlds lessens; the human 
is no longer in sharp contrast with the divine, but is rather its 
expression and its mirror. It is mainly art which thus transfig- 
ures the world and makes it a spiritual as well as a temporal 
home for man. But its exaltation of the Here in no wise inter- 
feres with its belief in a Beyond, and this, too, it invests with 
the most human and attractive features. Both worlds are so 
steeped in the joy of being that no contradiction between them 
can yet be realised. So, for example, in the chapel of the Medici, 
side by side with the artistic idealisation of the Here, we have 
the most living portrayal of a glorious Beyond. Such a mood 
sees nothing incongruous in a simultaneous enthusiasm for an- 
tiquity and for Christian piety. The new Academy, the highest 
philosophical creation of the Renaissance, feels no hesitation in 
the attempt to establish complete harmony between antiquity 
and Christendom. 

But the change, hidden though it be from consciousness, is 
yet there and its leaven is at work. The world in itself, the 
" Here," is depicted as a more coherent and self-subsistent whole : 
its outer and inner aspects, so long at strife, seek a fresh recon- 
ciliation. Nature becomes again instinct with spirit, the con- 
ception which antiquity had defended to its latest breath. Still 
more important for the conduct of life is the development of a 
spiritual medium other than the Church, a lay-circle absorbed 
in its own fresh interests and problems, and forming itself into 
a close inner fellowship, first in Italy, and then in the whole of 
Western Europe. 

The spirit of antiquity seems again to re-emerge in a renewed 
respect for form. We saw that the old Christianity, repelled by 



310 THE MODERN WORLD 

the polished emptiness of form characteristic of the post-classi- 
cal period, and bent only upon the salvation of the immortal 
soul, gave all its attention to subjective feeling and discarded 
form as something of little or even of doubtful worth. The 
danger of barbarism was already impending, a danger which 
waxed greater as the old culture declined, till in the Middle 
Ages all spirit was like to be stifled beneath a shapeless incubus 
of matter. Now again comes the reaction : form wins back its 
old importance : with the fresh energy of youth men gird them- 
selves to the task of overcoming all non-spiritual, formless con- 
fusion, making clear distinctions and fearless selections, and 
blending the chosen material anew into a thoroughly systematic 
shape. It is in this process that the transition is first made from 
a crude nature-conception to spirituality, that the world becomes 
subject to man and the whole of existence filled with an exalted 
joy. A development in this sense now becomes the all-compre- 
hensive ideal of life, and from this point onward its influence 
extends in every direction through the whole of the modern 
period. 

But however closely the Renaissance may touch antiquity, 
there remains an essential difference. What to the ancients had 
been a primitive natural outlook, adopted by each and all as a 
matter of course, had now to be expressly striven for, and could 
only be won at the cost of a bold violation of immediate tradi- 
tion. The whole process becomes more conscious and aggres- 
sive, and defines itself through the very oppositions it encounters : 
the movement toward the objective world of form is like a re- 
turn after long wandering to an abiding truth, like the joy of 
recovery after serious illness. Here the more pronounced de- 
velopment of the subject, which is the most important charac- 
teristic of the Renaissance, is already apparent. We see it sep- 
arating itself more confidently from the environment, meeting 
it more freely, asserting its own power more fully. It even be- 
comes the central point of life, viewing everything in relation to 
itself, and transforming all that is presented to it in accordance 
with its own nature. 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 311 

It is by no means easy to give an account of the way in which 
the modern spirit has contrived to realise along the lines of the 
Renaissance its own distinctive character. Two influences are 
here at work: one, the outcome of a long historical process; the 
other, born of the peculiarities of the responsive and susceptible 
Italian temperament. In the first place, the old culture was not 
so dead in Italy but that it could, by dint of a little energy, be 
again stirred into life. Moreover, the Middle Ages had not left 
such a strong, deep impress here as in the north. Then, too, there 
were the peculiar political relations, in themselves so extremely 
unfortunate; the splitting-up of states into factions, the weaken- 
ing and overthrow of lawful powers, whereby the individual 
was thrown back upon his own strength and judgment. In 
Italy for the first time, we see the position of an individual de- 
termined not by his membership of a certain class, or corporation 
or guild, but by his own character, free from all fetters of exter- 
nal authority. No longer does his social position make him 
merely a sample of a particular type, stamping upon him certain 
distinctive features, and directing his activity along lines which 
leave him no choice. He can move freely, and throw his own 
individuality into his creations. There is greater vigour and 
distinctness of individual development than ever before. How 
very much more forceful and vivid are the characters of the 
early Renaissance than those of the Middle Ages with their con- 
ventionality and uniformity! 

Dante here marks a real transition. As far as material goes, 
he belongs completely to the Middle Ages : his masterpiece pro- 
claims him as the truest disciple of that most mediaeval of think- 
ers, Thomas of Aquinas. But at the same time he feels and 
creates with such independence and mastery, he puts so much 
passion into his thinking, and pours over the universe such a 
seething tide of love and hate, that with him we feel ourselves 
entirely upon modern ground. 

But we cannot hope to understand the force which has en- 
abled the modern individual to re-create his world, and the 
extraordinary success of his emancipating work among the na- 



3 i2 THE MODERN WORLD 

tions, unless we take into due consideration the forces at work 
in the larger arena of the world's history. The reality of the 
inward life was no fresh discovery. It was a truth which the 
closing period of antiquity had already grasped, albeit with pain 
and effort. As a subordinate or side issue it had been faithfully 
preserved by the Middle Ages, and nowhere more so than in the 
life and speculation of the mystic. But now it feels itself strong 
enough to transcend its chrysalis-state and wing its flight through 
the world. The individual has promise of an infinity within his 
own being and is given an infinite universe wherein to unfold it. 
So the movement toward a more inward life, that legacy of a 
dying world, now becomes the germ of a great future, full of un- 
limited possibilities and problems. 

It is chiefly, however, in the more definite understanding with 
the world, in the clearer distinction of the boundaries between 
the world and self, that the greater independence of the modern 
subject is apparent. The growth is two-sided : as the spiritual 
life becomes more inward, we have a richer and more forceful 
development of the object-world. The interaction of the world 
and self makes life incomparably fresher, more alive and more 
substantial. "In the Middle Ages both aspects of conscious- 
ness — that which faces the world, and that which looks toward 
man's own inner life — lay dreaming or but half-awake beneath 
a veil which shrouded them each alike. The veil was woven of 
belief, childish prejudice, and illusion: the world and history 
as seen through its meshes were indeed wonderfully coloured, 
but himself man could see only as race, nation, faction, corpora- 
tion, family, or in some other universal shape. In Italy first 
this veil is lifted ; the state and the things of this world generally 
begin to be viewed and treated objectively; but at the same time 
the subjective asserts its rights, the man becomes a spiritual 
individuality and knows that he is such" (Burckhardt). 

This clearer distinction of man from his environment results 
in a bolder and freer exercise of all his spiritual powers. Re- 
flection becomes a pioneer, opening up new paths, everywhere 
deliberating and calculating, believing itself able to make things 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 313 

from out its own content — for example, to build up out of mere 
theory the constitution of a state. But this self-confidence pre- 
supposes a close alliance with imagination, a soaring imagina- 
tion, which ventures on bold syntheses and finds new links of 
union in apparently disconnected phenomena. Things may no 
longer stay as they are; man subjects them to his criticism, 
proves his powers upon them, and forces them to his use or en- 
joyment. Moreover, the life of feeling with its demand for hap- 
piness is radically different from the mediaeval temper. It re- 
fuses to be comforted by faith and hope in a Beyond ; it demands 
immediate satisfaction and with heart aflame presses on to pos- 
sess its happiness in full. 

But through all this strengthening of his inward life, man's 
mind still remains constantly in touch with reality, since only so 
can his powers unfold and his life be rich in content. Every 
effort is made to rid things from the mist of traditional prejudices 
and to grasp them in their true nature. It is on the sure ground 
of a reality soberly and clearly apprehended that man's own 
activity finds footing. Accordingly, it is everywhere most im- 
portant to begin by discovering the real nature of things, defi- 
ning them more precisely and depicting them more clearly. In 
this way the world gains a firm objective character, and for the 
first time it becomes possible to speak of an objective world- 
consciousness. But this in no wise detracts from the importance 
of the subject: it is, after all, from the basis provided by the 
subject that the objectifying process goes forward. 

So subject and object point to each other for completion. 
Opposite poles of thought, they are ever prone to hostility. But 
life will attain its highest perfection where both work together, 
bound to each other in a fruitful mutual relation. And this is 
what happens in art, primarily from the point of view of the 
artist, but to some extent from that of the spectator also. For 
as in the domain of art all inner impulse seeks embodiment, so, 
too, the outward form cannot be appropriated until it has been 
animated with a soul. Thus, in beauty, life reaches a unity and, 
at the same time, its own completion. The alliance of strength 



3 i4 THE MODERN WORLD 

and beauty, or better still, a beauty instinct with life, becomes 
the all-controlling ideal. 

In this revival of beauty we cannot fail to see how far we 
have travelled from the old conception. The beautiful is no 
longer an affair of peaceful contemplation and a sinking of self 
in the object. The subjective impulse is far too active to refrain 
from appropriating to itself its several experiences and trans- 
forming such influences as exalt its life into terms of personal 
enjoyment. Moreover, in the old days — at least among the 
greatest thinkers — the beautiful was so closely akin to the good 
that they could both be united in one single conception {koXov 
KayaBov). If a choice were made, it was usually in favour of 
the good. In the Renaissance, on the other hand, the relation 
to morals becomes looser; the beautiful begins to occupy an 
independent position over against the good : a code of life arises 
which is specifically aesthetic. It is not that art becomes un- 
moral, but that such morals as it requires it itself produces, and 
measures in accordance with its own inner necessities. Here 
beauty fulfils its supreme function in ministering to life and in 
developing to the full man's spiritual capacity. The expression 
in form serves to excite all man's varied powers into pleasurable 
activity. All the riches of his inner life, gradually stored up 
through the ages, come now into full possession and enjoyment 
through their expression in art. What gives to the art of the 
Renaissance its abiding significance and power is precisely this, 
that the modern spirit seeks and finds itself therein. The picture 
is not just a copy of some definitely fixed object: life itself re- 
ceives through it a fresh impetus. So art gives birth to a new 
ideal of life : the ideal of man is his universal nature, the varied 
manifestations of his activity blending together into one harmo- 
nious whole. 

But it is only among the few that creative art can keep so 
high a level. Elsewhere subjective and objective, feeling and 
performance, lose their balance, and the one seeks the suppres- 
sion and overthrow of the other. On the one hand, there arises 
the tendency toward pleasure and dazzling display, a life of 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 315 

luxury and enjoyment, dignified and tempered, it is true, by 
artistic taste, but lacking in lofty purpose. On the other hand, 
there is a separation of outward performance from inward mo- 
tive, an impulse to concentrate effort on the controlling of en- 
vironment, a movement toward the merely useful and practical. 
This results in a fruitful cultivation of the technical arts, and the 
employment of mechanical contrivances which prove very ser- 
viceable, especially in the hands of gifted individuals; but at 
the same time, the ultimate aims of man and his inward state 
are entirely ignored. Accordingly, the main current of endeavour 
breaks up into different streams and runs at very different levels. 
But in the end it is one and the same movement, embracing all 
kinds of opposite tendencies, and penetrating every single do- 
main of life, so that its influence is felt not only throughout the 
wide regions of vigorous, healthy growth, but often in the 
murky abodes of wizardry and superstition. 

In the first place, the relation to the world and to nature 
undergoes great changes. The Renaissance is the age of travels 
and discoveries. It feels an imperative need to bring every pos- 
sible sphere of real existence within its own horizon and to link 
it with its own life. Civilised man takes the earth for his prop- 
erty; as his clear glance sweeps its whole extent, he finds it no 
longer huge and overpowering; he can say proudly with Co- 
lumbus: "The earth is small." In more specific ways, too, 
reality is compelled to open up its resources and minister to 
man's enjoyment. Botanical gardens are laid out, menageries 
exhibited; in every domain the outlook is enriched and new in- 
terest is awakened. 

But the man of the Renaissance is not content merely to look 
at nature; he must also control her. Here, however, he is still 
confined within narrow limits, and when in the impetuosity of 
his desire he overrides them, he falls into grievous errors. We 
find, indeed, some valuable pioneer-work carried out in scien- 
tific research, and at the end of the fifteenth century Italy stands 
at the head of Europe in mathematics and the natural sciences; 
also the feeling for technical discovery has awakened. But on 



3 i6 THE MODERN WORLD 

the whole, the treatment of nature still remains speculative and 
subjective; research has as yet no sure point to work from. An 
animistic interpretation of nature prevails; the perception of her 
conformity to law is still wanting, and therefore no objection is 
taken to the miraculous. When, at the same time, the surging 
forces of life are claiming full sovereignty over the external 
world, it is easy to understand how man may h£ swept away by 
an unbridled imagination and carried into the gloomy regions of 
magic. Sorcery and superstition wax more luxuriant than in 
the Middle Ages. Nature, still a closed book to science, must 
be outwitted by secret arts and forced into the service of man. 
But worst of all was the belief in witchcraft, though, indeed, it 
was the northern lands far more than Italy which suffered under 
the weight of this dread nightmare with its terrible history of 
bloodshed. A weakness for superstition and magic must cer- 
tainly be included in any portrayal of the man of the Renais- 
sance period. 

He is far more happily situated as regards the development 
of an artistic view of nature and the spiritual intercourse he can 
now enjoy with her. The result of these is a permanent enrich- 
ment of life. The man of the Middle Ages had been too de- 
pendent on his sense-environment and was far too limited in his 
perceptions to be capable of transcending his scattered impres- 
sions. Later antiquity was in more intimate spiritual contact 
with nature, but nature was still rather an agreeable kindly 
companion than a means for the inward expansion of man's be- 
ing. In the Renaissance she plays a far more important role, for 
now man begins to delight in the beauty of scenery; he is con- 
scious of an irresistible impulse to depict it, and the feeling for 
nature receives a thorough development through the medium 
of plastic art. The environment can at last be unified to form 
a complete picture; a soul breathes through it and pours out 
upon man its liberating, calming, ennobling influences. 

The discovery of the world has its counterpart in man's dis- 
covery of himself. The individual is possessed before all else 
with a passionate desire to realise his powers in action and de- 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 317 

velop them in every direction. In all that he does he must dis- 
tinguish himself; his achievements must be brilliant, his skill 
proved beyond a doubt. This is congenial soil for the develop- 
ment of the private citizen, the man who separates himself from 
all public concerns and forms his own clique. But together with 
the growth of individualism goes a clearer knowledge of the in- 
dividual character. Man observes himself and his fellows with 
greater exactness, and delights in clear, even trenchant descrip- 
tion of what he has observed. He seeks to trace the character- 
istic features of persons and classes and social relationships. 
Nor does he forget the inner life in his concern with the outer. 
The delineation of the soul attains marvejlous perfection. So 
man becomes an object to himself. With clearer, soberer reflec- 
tion, unperturbed by moral considerations, he determines to 
search his nature through and through and measure its capacity. 
This self-knowledge makes his life more conscious and effective. 
Man's life and action become in a truer sense his very own. 

Ordinary everyday life also suffers change and transformation. 
Everywhere there is a movement in the direction of grace, beauty 
and comfort; everywhere life feels the moulding hand of art. 
Manners become more refined; pleasure is taken in the beauty 
and purity of speech; social intercourse is ennobled; festivals 
link art and life in closest fellowship : in every department there 
is a call for the effective display of strength and skill. This is 
the beginning of cultivated society, in which the individual has 
free movement and is valued in accordance with his contribu- 
tions to the general entertainment and pleasure. Distinctions 
of birth are ignored, inequalities of classes levelled : women co- 
operate with men. All the more exclusively does the cultured 
circle shut its doors against outsiders. Humanity recognises a 
new basis of division. 

The aspect of the state is also completely transformed: we 
have the rise of the modern commonwealth, with its civilising 
aims, its interest in secular problems and its claim to regulate all 
social relations. The life of the State is founded wholly on ex- 
perience, and is freed from the invisible net of relations in which 



318 THE MODERN WORLD 

mediaevalism had wrapped it. The State is no longer a fragment 
of a divine order which embraces the whole world ; no longer is 
it an organism of which individuals are the members; here 
"there is no feudalism in the northern sense with artificially 
derived rights" (Burckhardt). Politics are an ingenious 
mechanical contrivance in the hands of great men or exclusive 
aristocracies and must, at all costs, be effective. An insatiable 
thirst for power, success, and fame in the visible sphere sup- 
presses the moral judgment as a childish prejudice. A Macchia- 
velli in his rugged aphorisms is only formulating the guiding 
principles of his time. "Reasons of State" justify to the con- 
sciousness of this age even the most infamous actions. But at 
the same time there is a development on a large scale of the 
technique of political life. To control the outside world man 
must have an exact knowledge of his own powers: so in the 
Italy of the Renaissance the science of statistics springs up. 
And not only is the home government improved and systema- 
tised; the relations with other states demand more care and 
skill. Italy, more especially Venice, is the home of a "foreign" 
policy. This tendency to technical treatment pervades each 
and every department. War now becomes an art and presses 
every fresh discovery into its service. In fortress building the 
Italians are the teachers of all Europe. The science of finance 
is thoroughly developed; the State works enthusiastically to 
raise the general level of well-being, securing health and com- 
fort in the things of daily life, the laying out of towns and so 
forth. And everywhere reflection goes hand in hand with pleas- 
ure in creative activity; production is accompanied by descrip- 
tion, reasoning, criticism. It is especially Florence with its po- 
litical movements that is at the same time the home of political 
doctrines. 

Just as in this department the development of strength and 
technical skill pushes the moral judgment far into the back- 
ground, so too, generally speaking, the soil of the Renaissance 
is unfavourable to morals. It is not that there is any lack of 
noble, humane feeling, or of most estimable personalities. 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 319 

These are present in full measure. What is really wanting is an 
organised moral realm confronting the individual, exercising re- 
straint upon his inclinations, driving him beyond his merely 
natural standpoint. Instead of this, we find everything depend- 
ing on the uncertain nature of the individual character. A thor- 
oughly noble disposition can utilise its freedom for the unfolding 
of the fairest blossoms, but there is also plenty of room for 
brute strength and violence of the most terrible kind, for beasts 
in the guise of men, practising crime as their profession. The 
average of society shows a remarkable mixture of higher and 
lower, noble and base, often united in one and the same person. 
As soon as morality runs counter to natural inclination, she is 
looked upon as a force imposed from without, hindering man 
from the full unfolding of his powers and from handling objects 
in a natural way. 

The most potent counteracting influence to lower cravings is 
the desire of the individual for fame and immortality, or even 
for mere esteem in his own circle: self-respect, as we should 
call it. But this is an incentive which concerns appearance 
rather than reality, and readily ministers not to genuine moral- 
ity, but to its counterfeit. In truth, the moral atmosphere of the 
Renaissance is unclean through and through, and not all the 
beauty and purity of its artistic productions can, in the end, 
conceal even from itself the moral abyss which threatens to 
engulf it. It is this lack of moral vigour, and not primarily the 
Reformation or the Anti-reformation which has utterly unfitted 
the Renaissance for maintaining the lead in modern thought. 

To the Renaissance religion owes its close alliance with art 
and the consequent strengthening of its hold upon modern life. 
But the general tamper of the Renaissance is by no means fa- 
vourable to religion. The mass of the people remain sunk in 
superstition and are influenced almost exclusively by the magi- 
cal elements of religion, by the heathenism still persisting upon 
Christian ground. The middle and higher classes combine a 
strong antipathy to the works and ways of the Church with a 
sleek subserviency toward ecclesiastical authorities. Nor can 



320 THE MODERN WORLD 

they altogether escape the influence of the magical element. 
Especially would they seek to have the assurance of the sacra- 
ments against the event of death. At bottom, this feeling is 
thoroughly worldly, and it is in the main for worldly contingen- 
cies that religion is supposed to provide. But the passionate lust 
of life and the longing for fame and greatness in this present 
world make men keenly conscious of the obstacles which con- 
front them and direct their thoughts to the mysterious ruling of 
Fate. If an undertaking is doomed to failure, it is at least de- 
sirable to know the result beforehand and direct plans accord- 
ingly. So through this radically faithless, sceptical period there 
runs a strongly marked vein of fatalism, astrology, and even 
magic. Such is the average tendency; but in opposition to this 
we find lofty natures and select groups of thinkers developing 
a nobler and deeper religion, a religion for religion's sake. 
Here endeavour soars above all visible and finite forms; the 
idea arises of a universal religion; the spontaneous joy in life 
which belonged to the Renaissance is glorified and transfigured 
into a religion which includes both Theism and Pantheism: 
Panentheism, exalting man to life unending by union with the 
Godhead. This is the starting-point of influences which have 
been most productive for modern thought. But however pleas- 
ing and attractive are the personalities of certain isolated indi- 
viduals, yet even to them religion was not so much a matter of 
moral conversion as of metaphysical theory. Interest in the 
fundamental problems of early Christianity fades away before 
the speculative and sesthetic contemplation of the universe and 
the enlargement of existence which, it is hoped, will result 
therefrom. It was inevitable therefore that in Italy the adhe- 
rents of the Reformation should be few. It is true that these few 
individuals were more than usually strong in their championship 
of a freer and more universal mode of thought, and they under- 
stood, too, how to sacrifice property and life in its cause. But 
they found their true sphere of labour far from their own home : 
the soil of the Renaissance was utterly unfit to produce a 
universal religious movement. 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 321 

We must now turn our attention to the principal life-philoso- 
phies of the Renaissance. If it is true that they are not produc- 
tions of the very highest rank, but halt wavering between the 
old order and the new, it is likewise true that they are rich 
in suggestive ideas. It is to be understood as a limitation when 
we select three main directions of thought and seek to repre- 
sent, in the persons of their leaders, systems of cosmic specula- 
tion, of human conduct, and of the control of nature through 
science. 

(b) Cosmic Speculation. Nicholas 0} Cusa and Giordano 
Bruno 

The truest philosophical expression of the Renaissance is 
contained in the systems of cosmic speculation which originated 
with Nicholas of Cusa and reached their highest point of devel- 
opment with Giordano Bruno. The former was still, in many 
ways, closely linked with the Middle Ages, the latter imbued 
with the spirit of a new epoch. The one was an honoured Car- 
dinal of the Church, the other persecuted and burnt as a heretic. 

It is the peculiarity of these thinkers that they tend to turn 
away from the problems of inward experience to the universe at 
large, hoping thereby to win a wider and a truer life, and to ex- 
change the narrow limits of man's personality for the infinity of 
the universe. And since it is only as an expression of the Divine 
Being that the universe possesses such high value, the surrender 
to it has a religious implication which invests it with a spiritual 
glow. The Neo-Platonist and the Mystic also believed that all 
things had their existence in God, the Absolute Being. But 
this belief now operates very differently. In the thought of the 
world's union with God, a world-weary epoch had found a mo- 
tive for swiftly mounting to the ultimate Source of Being, and 
withdrawing from the gay panorama of phenomenal existence 
into the unity of the eternal. But from this same thought, a 
generation full of the joy of life draws inducement to mix more 
closely with the world and to rejoice whole-heartedly in its 



322 THE MODERN WORLD 

riches, since God dwells in all and from the whole complex uni- 
verse it is His face that looks out upon us. It is the presence of 
God which now gives to the world more unity, harmony, spir- 
ituality. 

Nicholas of Cusa (i 401-1464), of German origin, but intel- 
lectually a son of Italy, still belongs in great part to the Middle 
Ages, though the new tendencies are sufficiently strong in him, 
and sufficiently decided, to pave the way for important changes. 
The transcendence of God and the separation of the world from 
Him are still maintained. But it is the aim of speculation to 
find some inner ground of union between the two. That Being 
which in God is one, is in the world developed into a manifold. 
" What is the world other than the manifestation of the invisible 
God, and what is God other than the invisibility of the visible ?" 
The created world did not arise suddenly at some point in time, 
but prior to its manifestation existed eternally in God as an in- 
visible potentiality. God does not work through middle terms, 
such as Ideas, but is immediately active through all; He alone is 
"soul and spirit" of the whole worlcQ As a manifestation of 
infinite being the world has no limits. But as an expression of 
the divine unity, it must, despite its limitlessness, possess some 
principle of connexion. It is a principle of this kind that Nich- 
olas seeks, sometimes picturing the world as a harmonious ar- 
tistic whole — thus closely combining mathematical and aesthetic 
conceptions — sometimes as a series of steps mounting from 
lowest to highest in an unbroken chain. In both conceptions 
alike the endeavour to see things as a whole is combined with 
respect for the individuality of the unit; everything has its set- 
tled place, and its own peculiar task. "Nothing is at bottom 
empty or useless in Nature. For everything has its own activity. 
Each manifold blends harmoniously into a unity, just as many 
notes form one harmony, and many limbs one body. The ani- 
mating spirit unifies the whole body and through the whole the 
limbs and the parts." Here we already have the doctrine usu- 
ally attributed to Leibniz, that two things can never be exactly 
like each other, else they would fall together into one. 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 323 

But the growth of the individual existent is fostered more 
especially by the fact that it is not a mere part of the whole, but 
can experience immediately for itself after its own fashion the 
infinity of being and all the riches of the universe. "In all that 
is, God is omnipresent; and all that is, is in God." Especially 
is the human spirit — the microcosm — by virtue of its inner con- 
nexion with the divine ground of all reality, "a divine grain of 
seed which carries within it the original patterns of all things." 
From this point of view, life would seem to be the evolution of 
an inward germ which contains within itself the whole world; it 
is the creation of a world from within. The idea of develop- 
ment now begins to take on the sense of a progressive actualisa- 
tion of the potential. It is of course not only in the world that 
Nicholas would seek God; to the religious consciousness the 
supremely important thing is the immediate apprehension of 
God Himself, the rising in mystic exaltation to the source of all 
being. This is in close adherence to the old mystical idea that 
evolution {explicatio), as being a differentiation of unity into 
multiplicity, is an inferior process to involution (complicatio), 
which comprehends all multiplicity in an undifferentiated unity. 
But Nicholas is able to allow more importance to the life of the 
world, inasmuch as he does not separate it from God by a fixed 
gulf, but represents it as drawing constantly nearer to Him and 
thereby realising more and more its own nature. It is the clash 
of the eternal and the temporal within us, of the infinite and the 
finite, that gives such restlessness to our endeavour and at the 
same time fills us with the certainty that we are ever mounting 
upward. It is the penetration of our existence by religious, even 
mystical, ideas, that has given birth to the conception of an in- 
finite progress. 

A yearning for the Infinite not only possesses the human spirit, 
but reaches beyond it to the world of nature and sets that also 
into restless movement. In nature nothing reposes; the earth, 
hitherto the firm-established centre of the universe, must now 
move like the other heavenly bodies. Even the celestial pole, 
seemingly the most fixed point of all, does not escape the law 



324 THE MODERN WORLD 

of change. Movement can never cease. Death itself is but the 
minister of life, for it is nothing more than a "separation through 
which life is communicated and multiplied." 

Such theories result in greatly altered conceptions of the 
nature and value of the phenomenal world. Change and move- 
ment had fallen into great disfavour ever since Plato's time and 
had sunk especially low in the esteem of the Middle Ages which 
set over against this fluctuating world-process the eternal rest 
that is in God. But now it is precisely such change and move- 
ment which, under the influence of a fresher vitality, win im- 
portance and value. The world gains at the same time an added 
significance. Since throughout its whole extent it rests upon 
God and aspires after Him, nothing in it can be an object of 
contempt, and certainly not our earth, the dwelling-place of the 
human spirit. 

The more intimate nature of the activity of the Renaissance 
likewise reveals to us, despite its continuity with the past, an en- 
tirely new temper. Nicholas is at one with Neo-Platonism and 
Mysticism in considering knowledge as man's most important 
faculty. It is knowledge which, by penetrating to the very heart 
of being, is to effect its union with God. The human spirit is a 
living mirror of the universe, a ray from the divine light. But 
the mystical contemplation of the infinite in which all opposi- 
tions are reconciled does not altogether satisfy him; he is also 
dazzled and attracted by the infinite variety of life. And since the 
aspiration after knowledge is closely blent with that idea of an 
endless progress, the thirst for wider and yet wider knowledge 
becomes the very soul of life. "To be able to know more and 
more without any limit, that is to resemble the Eternal Wisdom. 
Man would fain increase continually his knowledge of that 
which he knows, intensify his love for that which he loves, and 
the whole world avails not to satisfy him, since it cannot still his 
craving after knowledge." This struggle for knowledge brings 
out and develops the true inner nature of spirit. "Like a fire 
which is kindled from a flint, so can the spirit, through the light 
that radiates from it, grow without limit." This new concep- 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 325 

tion of spirit as a variable quantity capable of endless develop- 
ment supplies a powerful stimulus to the world's work. Earthly 
existence now has a future of its own, and not merely an expecta- 
tion of a better world to come. These are clearly approxima- 
tions to a new mode of thought. 

It is at the same time true that Nicholas is still largely de- 
pendent on Scholasticism, and, side by side with most fruitful 
suggestions, his writings contain very fantastic speculations, a 
good deal of hazardous number-symbolism, and also some edi- 
fying meditations in the devout style of the mediaeval legends. 
Moreover, what seems new in him often proves to be borrowed 
from Neo-Platonism and Mysticism, even to the very concepts 
and imagery. And yet, in spite of all, we find ourselves on the 
threshold of a new world. For what is really new and is also 
capable of renewing the old, is the altered temper of life, the 
pleasure in work and creation, the attraction toward a world 
full of movement and beauty, in a word, the characteristic mood 
of the Renaissance. 

When we turn from Nicholas to Giordano Bruno (1548- 
1600), the near kinship of both thinkers is at once obvious. But 
at the same time, we cannot fail to notice a great change: life 
has gravitated still farther away from religion and in the direc- 
tion of secular labour. God is seen from the stand-point of the 
world rather than the world from the stand-point of God. More- 
over, the new thought is more self-conscious and has more re- 
sistent power; it feels its opposition to the old and it takes up 
the contest with a boldness that borders on effrontery. At the 
same time, the Copernican system, which has such a strong 
attraction for Bruno, powerfully supports and confirms the new 
tendencies and modes of feeling. Once again astronomy shows 
its power to influence man's general outlook on the world and 
even the very sentiment and tone of life. The belief that the 
universe was a closed system and that the stars moved in un- 
changing orbits had been, ever since Plato's time, the principal 
article and support of the creed which considered the universe 
as a self-poised artistic whole governed by eternal and immu- 



326 THE MODERN WORLD 

table Ideas. The new astronomical doctrine of the endless space 
and incessant change of the universe paves the way for a com- 
pletely new conception of the world. 

Bruno, like Nicholas, finds the chief purport of life in the 
upward progress of the finite spirit to infinite being. He also 
shares Nicholas's idea that the world — the sphere of visible 
being — contains as a developed manifold what exists in God as 
undifferentiated unity; and he therewith assigns a twofold trend 
to man's endeavour: while it seeks to penetrate through ap- 
pearance to reality, it should also participate joyously in the 
God-pervaded life of the world. But the centre of gravity has 
now been moved much nearer to the world; the reference to 
God often seems nothing more than a mere device for exalting 
the world in itself, and looking upon it as a whole. The divine 
essence and energy are at work inside things; it is as the artificer 
shaping from within that the divine reason is extolled. " God 
does not exist beyond and apart from the things of the world, 
but is throughout present in them; just as there is no such thing 
as being in the abstract apart from individual being, or nature 
apart from natural things, or goodness apart from the good." 
Thus the world becomes the central concern of science, the dis- 
tinction between the credulous theologian and the true philoso- 
pher, according to Bruno, consisting precisely in this, that the 
former in his explanations passes beyond nature, whereas the 
latter remains within her boundaries. 

As a result of the closer connexion between God and the uni- 
verse, the qualities which Nicholas in his speculations about 
God held to be mainly characteristic of Him, are now transferred 
to the universe: infinity, namely, and the coincidence of all 
opposites. As in the case of Nicholas, it is speculative thought 
which urges Bruno to assert the infinity of the universe : a finite 
world, he argues, would be unworthy of God; it is in keeping 
with His nature that He should actualise everything potential. 
But this train of thought now receives immense additional sup- 
port and vitality from the new astronomical view of the uni- 
verse. It is with Bruno that this view first manifests its trans- 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 327 

forming, widening power. Later on, custom has deadened and 
dulled it, but here it is at work in all its freshness. The old re- 
stricted view of the universe is repudiated as far too narrow; so, 
too, the idea of a spatial heaven beyond the stellar sphere. World 
upon world opens out into the infinite, all full of life and mo- 
tion, all manifestations of the Divine Being. Men begin to feel 
a proud joy in their liberation from mediaeval narrowness, an 
exalted bliss at sharing the life of the immeasurable, God-per- 
vaded universe. Over against its expanse and fulness, man's 
particular sphere dwindles into insignificance. To rise from our 
lethargy into the pure ether of the universe, to embrace the uni- 
verse with "heroic" love, this it is which constitutes the great- 
ness, the soul of our being. It is here that true morality lies : in 
this heroism, this putting forth of our utmost energy, this tension 
of our whole being as it lays hold on the infinite; and not in self- 
renunciation, self-humiliation, self-disparagement. 

The infinite nature of the universe has also an inward char- 
acter of another and more exalted kind than belongs to human 
action. For men are ever seeking, and must weigh and ponder 
at every turn. The universe is far removed from all such un- 
readiness and vacillation; the Supreme Cause knows no seek- 
ing and choosing ; it cannot do other than it does. So the oppo- 
sition between freedom and necessity disappears. For real ne- 
cessity denotes no outward compulsion, but the law of one's 
own nature. Therefore "there is no need to fear that if the 
Supreme Cause acts according to the necessity of nature, its 
action is not free : on the contrary, it would not be acting freely 
if it acted in any other way than that demanded by necessity and 
nature; or rather, by the necessity of nature." So over him 
and around him, man beholds a truer life than his, far removed 
from the complications of his own experience. But he can learn 
through thought to lay aside all littleness and grasp this univer- 
sal life. 

With Bruno, however, the surrender to the universe is closely 
connected — though not in equal measure at all stages of his lit- 
erary activity — with his recognition of monads, that is, of units 



328 THE MODERN WORLD 

differing from each other, indivisible, indestructible. These 
units are not mere points without content, but each of them has 
"within itself that which is all in all." Each has a share in the 
whole universe, but has it in a unique and peculiar way. Each 
through the development of its own life, contributes to the per- 
fection of the universe. Finally, each possesses the certainty of 
imperishability. For so-called life and death are merely phases 
in its being, an evolution and involution, very much as Leibniz 
believed at a later period. "Birth is the expanding from the 
centre, life the period of the circle's fulness, death the contrac- 
tion back into the centre." Such imperishability, however, does 
not assert the continuance of precisely this form of life; the in- 
destructibility of the natural existence is no personal immortality 
in the Christian sense. But it is a true philosophical expression 
of that exalted vitality which permeated the Renaissance and 
gave to the individual also the consciousness of being imper- 
ishable. 

As here, so everywhere, we have a manifest endeavour to 
overcome the oppositions of existence without overstepping the 
limits of this world. Things long sundered feel again the full 
force of mutual attraction. The universe, according to Bruno, 
knows no divorce of inner from outer, of bodily from spiritual. 
For not only do these oppositions spring in last resort from the 
same root, but even in the realm of experience, spirit is nowhere 
absent. The greatest and the smallest things alike possess 
a soul, just as all soul-life is bound up with bodily existence. 
Likewise form and matter are inextricably blent in the processes 
of nature; form is not added to matter from without, and matter 
is not a mere empty potentiality, that "next to nothing," as the 
Middle Ages termed it, following Augustine; but form is im- 
plicit in matter and matter is moulded by it from within. Herein 
lies the superiority of nature to art, that art employs a foreign 
material whereas nature works with her own; art works 
around {circa) its material, nature within it. 

So nature reveals herself as full of life and energy. But at 
the same time, the older conception of the universe as an artistic 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 329 

whole is preserved and rejuvenated. Life and beauty are 
closely united, not only in the whole spirit of the Renaissance, 
but also in the cosmic theory of its greatest philosopher. With 
all its movement, the world is yet a splendid work of art, whose 
harmony is undisturbed by the difference and discord of the 
parts. Indeed, the harmony itself demands a plurality of parts; 
for " there can be no order where there are no differences." We 
cannot understand connection without difference nor the One 
without the Many, nor the manifold save from the stand-point of 
the One. "It is a subtle magic which after finding the point of 
unity, is able to elicit the opposition." 

In this converging of all things toward universal harmony 
we have a motive that can lift men clear above all the injustices 
and suffering of existence. Once again it is the realm of thought 
which is expected to effect a full conciliation with reality. In the 
universe viewed as a work af art, everything shows itself to be 
useful, beautiful and reasonable. "Nothing in the universe is 
so trifling as not to contribute to the completeness and perfec- 
tion of the highest. So, too, there is nothing bad for certain 
people and in certain places which would not be for other people 
and in other places good, and even best. So to him who has 
regard to the whole universe nothing will appear base, evil, and 
inadequate; for, despite all plurality and contradiction, every- 
thing is best as it is arranged by Nature, which, after the man- 
ner of a choirmaster, guides the different voices into a harmony, 
and that the best possible harmony." It is as supplying the 
link between perfect beauty and boundless vitality that Nature 
is the true object of religious worship. "Not in the littleness 
and meanness of human things is God to be sought and revered, 
not in the base mysteries of our Roman decadents (romanti- 
corum vilia mysteria), but in the inviolable law of nature, in the 
splendour of the sun, in the shape of the things that spring forth 
from our Mother Earth, in the true image of the Supreme as it 
reveals itself in the countless living things which, on the fringe 
of the one immeasurable heaven, have light and life and feeling 
and knowledge, and acclaim the One Best and Highest." This 



330 THE MODERN WORLD 

worship of nature as the true kingdom of God had a very pow- 
erful attraction for Bruno personally, and he turned to it with 
all the force of his ardent disposition; whereas the inner prob- 
lems of the religious life, as also the historical and ecclesiastical 
elements of religion, left him wholly untouched. It was his 
misfortune, however, to belong to an age entirely absorbed in 
dogmatic controversy. 

By way of appreciation and criticism of this world of thought, 
we may subjoin the following remarks. Bruno's was a mind 
full of resource and suggestiveness, whence proceeded much that 
was liberating and inspiring: he gave philosophical expression 
to the main tendencies of the Renaissance; and finally, a mar- 
tyrdom met with heroic endurance casts a splendour over his 
whole life. But, except by such as measure greatness by the 
intensity of a man's opposition to the Church, he cannot be 
considered a great thinker. For, with Bruno, thought is not 
in process of passing out of a tumultuous confusion into a state 
where all is sifted and clear. That universe which is to be the 
means of emancipation from the smallness of the merely human, 
fancy peoples once again with powers that are but faded repro- 
ductions of the human form. The world is resplendent as the 
reflection of divinity, but this divinity is soon again enslaved and 
absorbed by the world. We have here that nature-worship 
which reflects the aesthetic feelings of the Renaissance in regard 
to nature, but in itself is a strange and hybrid phenomenon. 

And if there is a contradiction involved in the relationship of 
the world to God, there is likewise a contradiction in regard to 
the world itself: the contradiction between an aesthetic and a 
dynamic point of view. In the artistic conception of nature 
which we find in ancient Greece, there is no life without form, 
and everything has its clear delimitation. Now form loses its 
immutability and the tide of life flows limitless and free; but at 
the same time, the old aesthetic view still persists, nay, is preached 
with more than ordinary fervour. The contradictions are not 
really overcome; they are simply left side by side. It is unmis- 
takably an age of transition. 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 331 

At the same time we must not depreciate the liberating, 
quickening influences of the Renaissance, even on its intellectual 
side; only we must not forget that if much is won, much, too, 
is lost, and that what we are given is boldness of outline rather 
than well-elaborated construction. 

(c) The Art 0} Human Conduct. Montaigne 

The emancipation of the individual is one of the main issues 
of the Renaissance. The movement, however, develops differ- 
ently in the different countries. In Italy it is attracted toward 
what is great, strong, superhuman, thereby precipitating fierce 
conflicts with the environment. In France the national genius 
gives it a tone which, if less high-pitched and heroic, is far 
more moderate and amiable. In Italy, again, the individual's 
teeming energies, spurning restraint, enter into conflict with the 
infinity of the universe; in France, the plea for independence 
and freedom of movement does not challenge the stability of 
the existing order. Once more, the Italian thinkers are inter- 
ested in seeking a point of contact with Neo-Platonism, which 
appeals to them through its identification of God with the uni- 
verse, and its exaltation of man as a world-embracing micro- 
cosm; whereas the French feel most natural kinship with the 
hedonism, epicureanism and scepticism of the post-classical 
epoch, with such tendencies as emancipate the individual from 
all enslaving fetters and redeem life from its drudgery by trans- 
forming it into an art. The most prominent representative of 
this movement is Michel Montaigne (1 533-1 592). He "has 
portrayed if not the typical man, at least the typical French- 
man, with all the doubts and misapprehensions under which 
he labours, the pleasures which delight him, the hopes and 
wishes that he fosters — portrayed him as he is in his whole 
nature, whether sensual or spiritual" (Ranke). 

The modern individual, whose aim it is to develop his powers 
and enjoy his life, can bring more interest and freshness into 
his work than was possible for one who lived in the post-classical 



332 THE MODERN WORLD 

period. At the same time he has much harder opposition to 
encounter from environment and tradition. Again, if all abso- 
lute values and rigid conventions are to give way, thought will 
have much more to do, far more rubbish to clear away, far more 
call for its acuteness, wit and sarcasm. And this expectation is 
fully borne out by the facts. 

A rigidly orthodox culture, absolutely binding on the indi- 
vidual, Montaigne condemns as a danger and a misfortune. It 
diverts man from his own to alien interests, from the present to 
the future. "We are always out, never at home." We want to 
live everywhere, and so we live nowhere; we live without having 
any real consciousness of our life. At the same time, life has 
become artificial. "We have forsaken nature, and now want 
to instruct our mistress, under whose guidance we were once so 
safe and happy." Untruthfulness and hypocrisy pervade all 
our relations; we concern ourselves mainly with appearances; 
"the whole world masquerades," as Petronius says. By entan- 
gling ourselves with strange and alien interests, we make our 
lives restless and troubled; we lose our power of simple enjoy- 
ment, of easy and unfettered movement. The very refinement 
of our demands makes our passions more dangerous. So the 
civilised man is less happy and less good than the natural man 
with his simple and immediate outlook. 

In the charges thus brought against our civilisation, Mon- 
taigne seems to be anticipating Rousseau; his description of its 
evils agrees with Rousseau's even to the actual terms used. But 
the remedy he proposes is very different, and far less wild and 
dangerous than that suggested by the famous radical. Whereas 
Rousseau wishes to destroy the whole of our previous civilisa- 
tion that he may build up an entirely new life, Montaigne is con- 
tent with merely lightening the pressure that civilisation exerts 
upon the mind of man. This he does by pointing out the rela- 
tivity of all its arrangements, and by denying the fixity of social 
ordinances. But outwardly everything remains as it is, and to 
this extent the doctrine of relativity is thoroughly conservative 
in tendency. 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 333 

To Montaigne the chief means of emancipation is critical re- 
flection. It is this which reveals the fleeting, changeful nature 
of historical constructions, the accidental character of human 
institutions, the uncertainty of all so-called knowledge, the hol- 
lowness and barrenness of scholastic learning, and, above all, 
the subjectivity and individuality of all opinions and valu- 
ations. 

If things and their values are constantly changing with the 
individual, as in some gay panorama, if the same thing presents 
one aspect to this man and another to his neighbour, then it 
becomes a folly, a piece of arch-stupidity (quelle bestiale stupidite) 
to make one's own opinion binding on another man. He who 
clearly perceives the subjectivity and relativity of all convictions 
and all institutions is won over to the cause of most broad- 
minded toleration. 

Such a revolution of the inner life cannot fail to change our 
judgments of all that tradition has accustomed us to regard as 
great and good. The only criterion which an individual has is 
his own feeling. All claim to reality must be settled by appeal 
to his feeling : nothing can be good unless it prove itself agree- 
able. So the individual impression is to be the judge of truth; 
and that which is good-in-itself must yield place to the pleasant 
and the useful. 

But such increased freedom of movement by no means im- 
plies that the individual loses touch with his fellows. For man's 
life is passed in contact with other men and under the influence 
of bygone generations. The result of such association is a stock 
of generally-received beliefs and regulations, the extent of whose 
influence is further increased by custom. Our wisest course is to 
adhere, of our own free choice, to the usages and opinions which 
happen to prevail in our environment and our particular social 
sphere. Religion is reckoned as one of our social arrangements, 
and even as regards its historical status, an attitude of conserv- 
atism is recommended. The best party in the State is that 
"which upholds the old religion and the old distribution of prop- 
erty." So there was good reason why Montaigne on his travels 



334 THE MODERN WORLD 

should be received by the Pope, and why his work should meet 
with the approval of the Holy Office. 

When all restraints have been thus removed, the new life is 
able to develop its own nature freely and fully. The develop- 
ment here is mainly in the direction of the art of living, the right 
use of all opportunities, the clever adjustment to the needs of 
the moment, the vivre a propos. 

Obviously this life lacks depth, but it possesses notwithstand- 
ing some admirable traits. Although the Supreme Good is 
pleasure — in the sense of the self-pleasing (plaisir) of the indi- 
vidual — and though no one can feel it his duty to consider the 
welfare of any one else, yet it by no means follows that a man 
must be indifferent to the rest of the world. A friendly de- 
meanour toward those by whom he is surrounded will naturally 
commend itself to a man of tender-hearted, kindly disposition. 
Efforts are made to humanise social relations, to abolish severe 
regulations such as cruel punishments, torture and the like. 
Animals and even trees are to be treated with indulgence. More- 
over, the consciousness that everything human is relative and 
that all individuals have equal rights makes for a charitable 
judgment of other people's actions and a broad tolerance toward 
men and things. So Montaigne pursues his own way, undis- 
turbed by the sharp oppositions and passionate conflicts of the 
age in which he lived. 

The mainspring of a happy life is moderation : this it is which 
constitutes virtue. Virtue is no stern taskmistress, fettering 
life's freedom, but a minister to human happiness, teaching us 
the art of right enjoyment. She is a cheerful, happy presence, 
never demanding renunciation save in the interests of a greater 
pleasure. It is the golden mean that moderation finds com- 
mendable in all circumstances; no bold, empyrean flight, but 
contentment with a bare sufficiency, is the best guide to happi- 
ness. Goods which exceed the mean are only an incubus. 

Happiness, moreover, demands a simple and natural mode of 
life. All real joy and real capacity are developed in close con- 
tact with nature. So, even in moral education, it is the simplest 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 335 

impressions and feelings which should form the starting-point 
of our effort. "Pain and pleasure, love and hate, are the first 
things which a child feels; when it becomes capable of reason, 
then these elemental feelings combine with reason to form vir- 
tue." Here appears, seemingly for the first time, the maxim 
which later excited so much discussion, not to interfere too 
much with nature but to give her a chance of working in her 
own way {laissons faire un peu la nature). "She understands 
her business better than we do." 

The less life concerns itself with trying to fathom the universe, 
the greater is the stress laid on social intercourse with men. So- 
ciety is the chief source of pleasure ; life develops best when men 
act and react on each other. But such interaction must still 
leave them their independence; even though their thoughts be 
constantly occupied with man, they do not require his physical 
proximity at every hour of the day. So, according to Mon- 
taigne, it is best to avoid all fixed obligations, and binding rela- 
tionships. "Wisdom herself I would not have wedded, if she 
had asked me." 

This regimen of life is specially distinguished by its light- 
heartedness, cheerfulness and gaiety. The easy acceptance of 
things as they are is particularly characteristic when we con- 
trast it with the deep and solemn sense of responsibility which 
had marked the attitude of the Reformation. Life would now 
seem to be altogether freed from the oppressive nightmare of 
the past and the perplexing riddles of the universe. Through 
the shifting of its centre of intercourse to a sense-environment, 
it assumes the form of a gay, light-hearted dalliance with the 
surface of things, a dalliance in which there is a constant inter- 
play of varied forces spreading cheer and joy over the whole of 
existence. All problems lose their harshness; an amiable tem- 
per softens the edge of even the sharpest thrusts. 

Such are the tendencies which influence the development of 
one very important side of French character. No other nation 
is so ready to remove the waste and rubbish of worn-out tradi- 
tions, to centre life in the immediate present, to live for the 



336 THE MODERN WORLD 

moment, to vibrate to the swingings of time's pendulum with live- 
liest sensibility. So it is among the French that we find the clear- 
est indication of the changes in the tendencies and moods of civi- 
lised life. They are the people who, not only in external things, 
set the fashion. It is the French, too, who have made life into 
a fine art, turning existence into a merry pastime, and giving 
full and free play to the individual. And of Montaigne it can be 
said in all these respects, that "the peculiar genius of the nation 
is reflected in him" (Ranke). 

But that which suffices for a certain level of life is not there- 
fore the ultimate and the whole. Common-sense is not the 
sum of wisdom. And yet Montaigne maintains that it is. But 
at once all those objections come up which the old Epicurean- 
ism called forth; the centuries have only added to their force. 
Obviously this way of life is unproductive; its optimism, too, has 
no security against misery and evil. Its strong point, the taking 
things lightly, becomes a weakness so soon as great and seri- 
ous issues are at stake. We may go further and say that if 
its jesting temper makes the ultimate problems of our spiritual 
existence a matter of social taste, of mere fashion and caprice, 
then it is only a step in the direction of frivolous and destructive 
levity. Unhappy is the nation that adopts a mode of life which 
makes for this superficial enjoyment and allows a sceptical, 
epicurean way of thinking to decide not only on things temporal, 
but on things eternal. 

(d) The New Attitude toward Nature and the Control oj Nature 
through Science. Bacon 

With Bacon (1561-1626), we are already on the very thresh- 
old of the Enlightenment. For with him the seething ferment 
of the Renaissance becomes clear and intelligible. But the new 
element is still working within the old rather than finding for 
itself an independentbasis and creating its own form of expression. 
This thinker excels in boldness of conception, but has little gift 
for detail work. He, like his predecessors, is impelled by a soar- 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 337 

ing imagination, which gives his ideas a powerful impetus and 
interweaves his presentation of them with brilliant imagery; 
he, too, has suggested more than he has worked out. So we 
count him as still belonging to that transitional period which 
ushers in the modern world. 

He begins his work with a trenchant criticism of the preva- 
lent philosophy, and a complete break with historical tradition. 
He finds the existing state of science utterly and wholly unsat- 
isfactory, since it gives us neither the knowledge of things nor 
the power to control them. That which passes for science is mere 
pretence and wordiness; it is barren and dead, forlorn result of 
centuries of toil ! With the facts before us, how can we continue 
to bow down before our much-belauded classics, especially 
Aristotle? And why such dependence on the old? Why call 
those early thinkers old, and not rather ourselves, who embody 
the experience of the centuries ? Once we thought tradition the 
mouthpiece of transcendent reason, but now we begin to doubt 
whether she really does hand down only the best achievement 
of the past. For may not time be like a river, which bears on- 
ward the light, inflated things, leaving what is heavy and solid 
to sink to the bottom ? We must, therefore, free ourselves from 
all traditional authority, and begin our work all over again. 
Here we have a complete change in the attitude toward history; 
from a blind reverence of the past, we swing round into a blind 
rejection of it, and to an exclusive appreciation of the present. 

Such a sharp break with the past is often censured, and Bacon 
is accused of a wanton passion for innovation. But an unprej- 
udiced estimate in the light of the circumstances of the time will 
give a different verdict. When men began seriously to doubt the 
correctness of the older method, the overweening force of tra- 
dition must have seemed to them a tremendous incubus, an in- 
tolerable restraint : at all costs, this burden must be shaken off 
and the path left clear. It is easy for a man to value history 
aright when she no longer threatens his freedom; he who has 
to fight for justice is seldom just. 

But how are we to improve on these earlier thinkers ? Obvi- 



338 THE MODERN WORLD 

ously their mistakes were not due to any lack of intellectual 
power, for there was certainly no dearth of talent among them. 
It must have been their way of procedure, their method, which 
led them astray. Their work was vain, because it followed the 
wrong paths. From a more correct method we may hope for 
better success and an end to unproductive toil. 

The seat of the error may be specified as follows. Man, in- 
stead of taking things as they were, and considering the truth 
about them to be more important than his own ideas, had made 
himself into a centre, and interpreted everything in accordance 
with his own feelings and purposes; the whole immeasurable 
wealth of the universe he imprisoned in a web of human concep- 
tions and formulas; the phantoms of human prejudice tyran- 
nised over work and hindered all progress. Such inquiry was 
anxious, above all, to have done with its problem and to rest 
from the labour of thinking; so it broke off when it had scarce 
begun; general propositions were recklessly hazarded and set 
up as incontestable truths which could give an answer to all 
questions. This subjective and deductive procedure gave no 
interpretation of nature {inter pretatio natures), but a mere un- 
verified anticipation (anticipatio mentis); nor did it win any 
control over nature, but with its formulas and abstractions re- 
mained quite unfruitful for the purposes of life. 

The clear perception of the fault indicates the remedy. We 
must keep in close continuous touch with things, develop an 
objective, inductive method, free science from anthropomor- 
phism. Preconceived notions and doctrines must be expunged, 
and the mind presented to the outside world like a clean slate. 
Only he can constrain nature who first obeys her. So through 
the whole course of the work all personal preference — nay, all 
that the mind of itself can contribute — must be set aside; the 
mind must never be allowed to work by itself, but the subject- 
matter must, as far as possible, be treated mechanically (velut 
per machinas), and just follow the movement of the objects 
themselves. This new kind of inquiry must begin with indi- 
vidual impressions, as it is these which faithfully transmit to us 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 339 

the nature of things. The foundation thus laid must be broad 
and secure; we must see clearly and exactly, and, where pos- 
sible, with the help of instruments, since these not only make 
our observations finer, but also eliminate the uncertainty caused 
by differences of subjective appreciation. Then slowly and cau- 
tiously, feeling our way carefully step by step, frequently altering 
the conditions of observation, and cleverly selecting crucial in- 
stances, we must mount upward to our universal propositions, 
even then not hurrying to attain the finality of a system, — there- 
by precluding further growth — but leaving questions open, and 
thought alive and progressive. At the same time, inference 
must always be abundantly supported by experiment, which 
binds nature and constrains her to an answer, whereas otherwise 
she slips from man's hold with Protean agility. If all this is done 
with unwearied patience and stern self-criticism, we shall grad- 
ually build up on a sure foundation a mighty pyramid of knowl- 
edge. 

Many objections have been urged, and not without reason, 
against this Baconian method. The activity of the mind does 
not admit of being so entirely eliminated; work does not accu- 
mulate and arrange itself so easily. It needs to be guided along 
right lines, which only the pioneering work of thought can win 
from the chaos of the phenomenal world. Here, too, inquiry is 
still too much at the mercy of the immediate impression : there 
is a lack of penetrating analysis, that most important instrument 
of modern scientific inquiry. Moreover, Bacon is still straying 
in the paths of scholasticism in so far as he seeks not the sim- 
plest forces and laws, but rather the universal forms and essences 
of things. But none the less, his work, taken as a whole, marks 
a new departure. The perception of human littleness has awa- 
kened in full force, and at the same time a longing to come into 
living touch with things, nay, more, with the infinity of the uni- 
verse. To this end, man must abandon his long-cherished illu- 
sions and war against himself — a war which cannot succeed 
save at great cost. Nor does the contact with things result only 
in an expansion of life : its main effect seems to be to bring life 



340 THE MODERN WORLD 

out from the shadows in which it has lain into the full blaze of 
reality. And the result of such a triumph is that man, in spite of 
his consciousness of subordination to nature, feels an access of 
sure, proud confidence in his own powers. 

And he does so the more, since with Bacon scientific inquiry 
does not stop short at mere knowing, but seeks to gain a technical 
control over nature; "the real and true goal of the sciences is 
nothing else than the enrichment of human life by the introduc- 
tion of new inventions and resources." This is the origin of the 
characteristic saying which has passed into a proverb that knowl- 
edge is power. Man is willing to serve nature only that he may 
wrest her secret from her and subdue her to his sway. Inasmuch 
as such control means a continual expansion of our powers, 
turning the forces of nature into limbs of our body and instru- 
ments of our will, it raises indefinitely the level of our life and 
well-being. Life's success is thus made to depend on scientific 
knowledge and its technical development. 

Such a course of thought leads to an enthusiastic eulogizing 
of inventions; they are "as it were new creations and imitations 
of the Divine works." The inventors, moreover, are men who 
increase the wealth of humanity and win for it new provinces; 
hence they are far superior to the conquerors in war who only 
enrich one nation, and that at the cost of others. How one 
single invention can alter the whole course of life is shown by 
the discovery of printing, gunpowder and the compass; for 
without these, literary development, war and world-wide com- 
merce were all alike impossible. How much more may we ex- 
pect when methodical, systematic attack replaces the depend- 
ence on mere happy accident, when a universally valid method 
of discovery is formulated and practised by many in common. 
For it is certain that nature still hides much treasure; many in- 
ventions yet await us. And by erecting into an art that which 
once belonged to the domain of chance, we can hope to raise 
appreciably the level of life. With the enthusiasm of a prophet 
Bacon foresees a new condition of civilisation, and presses for- 
ward to the realisation of it with burning ardour. Like a true 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 341 

seer, also, he expects this better future to result from an imme- 
diate revolution rather than from a process of slow toil. 

To conceive life's main problem in this way is to give birth 
to a new spirit which reveals its influence in many directions. 
The task of building up the pyramid of knowledge and revo- 
lutionising the whole of existence by means of inventions is far 
too great for the individual. It requires the united energies of 
many. Nay, more, however true it be that the present is the 
critical turning-point, yet the work of successive generations is 
required, a sum-total of all possible contributions. Science is 
no longer the affair of the individual, but of the race. Each 
man must willingly subordinate and adjust himself to the 
whole which calls for the services of all; "many shall run to 
and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Thus the new 
knowledge acquires a distinctively ethical character. 

At the same time, the profound respect for method, which had 
been the original inspiration of Bacon's work, becomes more 
and more pronounced. Any mode of procedure which is to 
make sure of progress in its department and to fuse together the 
scattered energies of many minds must be quite independent of 
subjective accidents and be necessitated by the facts themselves. 
It will reduce differing capacities to the same level and increase 
the effectiveness of the less talented. For "gifts in themselves 
poor and unpromising become of importance when employed in 
the right way and order." A lame man who keeps to the path 
can overtake a runner who makes a circuit. Method seems here 
to have cut itself loose from persons, and to work with the un- 
varying accuracy of a machine. This is the beginning of that 
overvaluing of method and undervaluing of personality which 
has been the cause of much error in our modern life. But the 
exaggeration must not blind us to the perfectly justifiable and 
indispensable character of the main contention. The develop- 
ment of the spiritual life of to-day was not possible until work 
proceeded securely along its own lines in an undeviating course 
which the individual was bound to respect. And to win for it this 
right was the real motive of this whole insistence upon method. 



342 THE MODERN WORLD 

This transformation of science is accompanied by a corre- 
sponding change of the position which it occupies in the do- 
main of life. It now becomes the peak which dominates the 
whole landscape: it is the very soul of civilisation. The new 
order of things ranks as "the kingdom of philosophy and the 
sciences." The new intellectual epoch is proclaimed with no 
uncertain voice. But the parent stock of all science is natural 
science. This is the "great mother," the root of all knowl- 
edge, separation from which means death; in fact, with 
Bacon, it provides concepts and rules for all the sciences. 
So already at this early date, we have that fundamentally 
false identification of "nature" with "world," of natural sci- 
ence with science generally, which has set up so much error 
and confusion. 

When science is so conceived, and associated with the im- 
petus toward technical development, there results a certain 
characteristic view and temper of life. Even within the limits 
of time itself, man has now an important task to fulfil, an im- 
portant future to look forward to; his energies are now fully 
occupied with this present world. From the exercise of his 
powers amid the press of work, there is now evolved a more 
vivid consciousness of self, a fundamentally optimistic frame of 
mind. The thinker has no desire to bewail the miseries of man- 
kind; he would rather linger over great men and their works, 
"those marvels of human nature." He would like to frame a 
calendar which should celebrate the triumphs of humanity. 
And though science may suffer much from an overweening self- 
confidence, it is not this, but craven-heartedness and a prema- 
ture despair, which we are especially warned to beware of. 
What a contrast, this, to the mediaeval spirit! 

The chief aim of work is to produce, and prove effective. 
Hence a growing tendency to disregard the purely inward as- 
pect of things, a tendency pervading all departments alike. 
Bacon has, for instance, some striking epigrams on the subject 
of religion. It is he who says that in philosophy a sip off the 
surface may perhaps drive a man to atheism, but a deeper 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 343 

draught will bring him back again to religion; yet he is insistent 
on the separation of human from divine, of faith from science, 
so that scientific inquiry may be undisturbed by religious 
fanaticism. Morality he wishes to base no longer on religion 
and theology, but on human nature; his treatment, however, 
does not go very deep, and his investigation concerns itself more 
with ways and methods of work than with ultimate ends. Bacon 
speaks of a culture of the mind (cultura animi), and he is so 
much under the influence of the metaphor that he can also talk 
of an "agriculture" (georgica) of the mind. Law is reckoned 
as a part of the work of civilisation : its chief function is to min- 
ister to the common use and happiness of the citizens. The 
laws must be clearly and definitely grasped; the application of 
them must be regulated by the mode of thought actually preva- 
lent, to the strictest exclusion of all elements of caprice and un- 
certainty. Also in educational theory, technique takes prece- 
dence of morality. Bacon holds up as a pattern the school sys- 
tem of the Jesuits. Finally, a very noteworthy feature is the 
contempt for art and all beautiful form. He is not concerned 
with the beauty of things, but only with their content and their 
use. The art of presentation has for him no value; all adorn- 
ment seems superfluous and even harmful. As a matter of fact, 
Bacon presents his own thoughts in the most carefully modelled 
and finely polished form; often he coins expressions so striking 
that they have been borrowed by succeeding centuries; his 
mode of presentation shows the greatest freshness of feeling, 
and an almost dramatic interest by reason of the sharp an- 
titheses which everywhere abound in his work. Everything 
taken together, he is a master of scientific style, and more 
than any one else, has given to this style its distinctively modern 
colouring. 

So, too, in other respects, Bacon often breaks through the 
limits imposed upon his thought by the technical character of 
his scientific work. Still it is the scientific temper which directs 
the main current of his thought; and only that which is tribu- 
tary to it can join in the common movement. 



344 THE MODERN WORLD 

Bacon has given classical expression to an urgent need of our 
modern life, and has championed its cause triumphantly. The 
movement which he develops is a movement of revulsion from 
abstract conception to immediate intuition, from the subtleties 
of words to the knowledge of things, from the narrowness of the 
schools to the broad culture of social life, from the airy freedom 
of subjectivism to the binding relationships of an objective 
world. He interweaves human existence more closely with its 
environment. In a word, he is the founder of Modern Realism. 
How truly his work met the need of his age for immediacy and 
reality, is shown more particularly in the seventeenth-century 
revolution of educational theory (Comenius) which takes up his 
line of endeavour and carries it still further. 

That Bacon remains, notwithstanding, in a transitional posi- 
tion is sufficiently indicated by his outlook upon life. He is 
completely silent upon many problems, the expression and solu- 
tion of which was the great achievement of the Enlightenment. 
In particular, there is no mention of a break with the primitive 
view of the earth's place in the universe. He allows contra- 
dictory tendencies to exist side by side without making an at- 
tempt to reconcile them. When it is a question of knowledge, 
the relation of the human mind to reality is totally different from 
that which it assumes when action is concerned. In the one 
case, it stands aloof from things, empty and powerless; in the 
other, it gains gigantic proportions and subdues the environ- 
ment to its imperious sway. But, we may ask, what is going 
on in the man himself whose capacities are thus enormously 
extended? What is the inward gain which corresponds to 
this increase of power? To this question Bacon has no an- 
swer. 

We see, then, that he has no more arrived at a final conclusion 
than have the other thinkers of the Renaissance. However 
much he has contributed by his youthful energy and optimistic 
faith to the inauguration of a new era, it is nevertheless true of 
him also that he ushers in not daylight, but dawn. 

$t7 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 345 

II. THE ENLIGHTENMENT 

(a) General Characteristics of the Enlightenment 

As the Enlightenment shared with the Renaissance the task 
of reconstructing the modern world, it is natural that both 
epochs should possess features in common. To both the uni- 
verse makes an irresistible appeal : the gladness and joy of life, 
the impulse to produce and create, the inclination to make action 
the all-important centre of existence, the desire to rule and gov- 
ern the outside world, the struggle for the free development of 
every power — these things are common to them both. And this 
overflowing vitality is accompanied by a firm belief in the sover- 
eignty of reason within the world of reality. Even opposition 
is viewed rather as a welcome stimulus to our powers than as an 
incapacitating obstacle. The whole tone of life is optimistic 
through and through, and characterised by a prompt readiness 
to action. 

But within this general likeness, there are dissimilarities 
which amount to a complete opposition, an opposition which 
must be kept clearly in view by such as wish to follow with 
understanding the development of our modern world. For the 
Renaissance represents its youth, the Enlightenment its early 
maturity. The Renaissance tends rather to present the whole 
realm of being as an undifferentiated unity; it inclines to the 
heroic; it allows imagination to rule unchecked. The Enlight- 
enment makes more for clearness and distinctness, not only in 
the objective, but also in the subjective, world. Its energy is 
less impetuous; it is cautious and calculating; it desires to do 
work that strikes deep and bears fruit. In the Renaissance, we 
have the full freshness of the first impression, action based on 
impulse, often a mere chaotic confusion. The Enlightenment 
asks for thorough grounding, strict order, systematic connection. 
In the one case, man is on a familiar footing with his world, and 
is quite unembarrassed in his dealings with it: there is an easy 
give-and-take relationship; the prevalent mode of thought is 



346 THE MODERN WORLD 

monistic. In the other case, man and the world are more sharply 
sundered ; there is discovery of differences, setting forth of oppo- 
sitions, a method which is essentially dualistic and dichotomic. 
The one aims at building up comprehensive systems; the other 
at reducing things to their ultimate elements. In the one, the 
synthetic method prevails; in the other, the analytic. To the 
Renaissance, nature is animate; the greatest things, as the 
smallest, are the abode of spirits, which appear sometimes as 
forms of ravishing beauty, but sometimes as black, tormenting 
fiends. To the Enlightenment, nature is inanimate, resolved 
into smallest atoms, subjected to unchanging laws, and there- 
with transformed into a machine whose transparent wheel-work 
allows of no magic and no sorcery. 

The distinction goes deep and affects all branches of human 
activity. Morality, to the Renaissance, is something imposed 
from outside; so it easily comes to be looked upon as a burden- 
some restraint on the boisterous vitality of the strong and the 
virile. The Enlightenment views morality as part of man's own 
nature, and an agency for lifting life to a higher level. Again, in 
politics, the Renaissance exalts the individual with his lust after 
rule and dominion; the Enlightenment makes all men free and 
equal, since it sees in all the manifestation of one and the same 
Reason. Philosophical belief, again, in the one case favours 
Neo-Platonism, in the other, Stoicism. Finally, there is a totally 
different attitude toward history. The Renaissance proclaims 
itself as a revival of older forms of life, and in its productions 
blends old and new inextricably together. The Enlightenment 
sets life in a timeless present of Reason and is, therefore, diamet- 
rically opposed to all historical tradition, and to all systems of 
life that are based upon authority. 

In general temper, it is the Renaissance which, at first sight, 
is the more intensely alive. But the pulse-beat of the Enlight- 
enment is really stronger, and the results of its activity more 
important. In both periods, life centres its interest on the world, 
and is eager to subdue all tracts of existence to the will of man : 
in both, the gulf between man and the world is wider than in the 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 347 

Middle Ages. But in the Renaissance, man and the world are 
not so far asunder but that they can still unite again with ease : 
in artistic creation, the opposition seems altogether lost, and 
reality is entirely within man's grasp. The Enlightenment, on 
the other hand, has intensified the opposition, almost past hope 
of transcendence. Nature is emptied of everything spiritual, 
and becomes completely autonomous; the soul, at the same time, 
is loosened from all outside connection and firmly centred in 
itself. The two aspects of reality seem in irreconcilable antag- 
onism; and when, notwithstanding, man cannot turn his back 
upon the world, and sees that if he hold aloof his work has no 
meaning and his life no gladness, he is face to face with a 
knotty problem: if world and soul are to reunite, the primitive 
conception of them must be radically changed, and the chief 
instrument in effecting this change is science. Such a process, 
however, involves far more thought and toil, more critical 
reflection and clear definition of limits, than was possible 
to the more primitive culture of the Renaissance. Taken all 
in all, the Renaissance gives us a fresher and more brilliant 
picture; the Enlightenment, one more full of thought and 
meaning. 

If what we have said is sufficient to show that a first impres- 
sion of the Enlightenment may easily incline to be unfavourable, 
it is natural that the nineteenth century should be particularly 
unjust to it, inasmuch as the assertion of its own spirit involved 
such a complete reaction. Moreover, it could not see the En- 
lightenment as it really was in the first flush of its youthful ideal, 
but knew it only when it had descended to the level of ordinary 
life. Hostile to history as the movement was, it can yet be ap- 
preciated rightly only in the light of its historical connections. 
Viewed in this light, it no longer presents itself as a logic-ridden 
process subject to the petty limitations of a formal understand- 
ing, but rather as an earnest endeavour of the whole man to 
realise the true meaning of his life. It contrasts with the Middle 
Ages by its claim to complete freedom, and with the Renaissance 
by its claim to complete clearness; through the fulfilment of 



348 THE MODERN WORLD 

both these claims man takes possession of the world and feels 
himself its ruler. 

The requisite condition for such control of nature is that man 
should live his own life and possess from the outset a trustwor- 
thy mental equipment. So it was one of the main concerns of 
the Enlightenment to secure him this requirement by proving 
that he was no mere empty receptacle, no tabula rasa, but 
rather the possessor of a self-sufficing nature, a repository of in- 
fallible truths, himself the measure of all things. To attain 
mastery of his world, all he needs is to search into this nature of 
his and develop it thoroughly. From his indwelling reason he 
can produce a "natural" law, a "natural" morality, a "natural" 
religion, independently of all tradition. It enables him to criti- 
cise the traditional order of things, call everything into question 
weed out what contradicts reason, gather together and treasure 
up all that is in accord with it. Every power is called upon to 
do full work; the human spirit seems now for the first time to 
enter upon its majority; it engages in a vigorous conflict with 
the seeming irrationalism of the world around it; out of its in- 
dwelling reason, it evolves, in opposition to ecclesiastical or- 
ganisation, a system of life that is universal, and it therewith 
revolutionises the whole order of things in every department. 
The system has been severely attacked and has been broken 
through at almost every single point. But as a whole it still 
survives, since all revolution and innovation have as yet failed 
to produce a new Order. And only a system can overthrow a 
system. 

When we consider the Enlightenment in closer detail, we are 
struck by the spirit of serious labour, happy faith in the power of 
goodness and enthusiasm for humanity, which greet us on every 
hand. How much we owe to its untiring zeal for the human- 
ising of social conditions, in ameliorating harsh laws, for in- 
stance, and raising the general standard of culture and educa- 
tion ! How deeply we are indebted to the intellectual acuteness 
which freed us from the devastating superstition that lay like a 
blight on the genius of the Renaissance! In truth, we often 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 349 

judge the Enlightenment unfavourably for the very reason that 
we have drawn from it the inspiration for our best work. 

Such a recognition of its claims, however, need not blind us 
to its limitations and errors. Whether or not we approve of the 
attempt to isolate the reason, concentrate its forces, and then 
marshal them to do battle with the outside world, we must at 
least admit that the project was carried out in far too easy and 
hasty a fashion, and that consequently life became involved in 
restrictions and negations which reduced it eventually to a 
shallow conventionalism. To the Enlightenment with its con- 
sciousness of power and its optimistic turn of mind it seemed as 
though reason lay ready available in the soul of every man. The 
natural goodness immediately operative in each individual 
awaited only the emancipating touch to rise in majesty and 
bring the environing world into like harmony with reason. 
There was nowhere any aliveness to difficult spiritual problems. 
Much, therefore, became superfluous that had hitherto seemed 
indispensable. If reason were available at every moment in 
every individual, then why trouble about history, which really 
seemed rather a hindrance than a help ? Again, there was a 
weakening of the spiritual tie which linked the individual to the 
community. And finally, the optimism of the period prevented 
any deeper understanding of the old religious view of life. In 
all these points, the Enlightenment was bound to become more 
and more narrow in proportion as it developed more and more 
self-consciously its own peculiar character. 

This narrowness, moreover, penetrates even to the innermost 
structure of life. The Enlightenment seeks for the firm and 
ultimate ground, the fundamental constituent of reality, in that 
which is immediately given to consciousness. What conscious- 
ness first becomes aware of passes for the real essence of the 
thing. Thus the entire soul is summed up in thought and knowl- 
edge; the coexistence of atoms makes up the entire world. The 
realm of presentation together with spatial existence constitutes 
the whole of reality, though neither singly nor together can they 
give rise to what is spiritual or self-sufficient. 



350 THE MODERN WORLD 

Such negations and restrictions were bound, as the movement 
spread and deepened, to increase in force and finally to produce 
a strong reaction. But despite all that is questionable and de- 
fective in detail, there is no contesting the great and abiding 
significance of the fundamental aim. The keenest-eyed criti- 
cism must not forget how greatly the movement has helped to 
bring light and freedom into human existence, and how pro- 
foundly it affects us all even to-day. 

The transition from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment is 
neither sudden nor abrupt. In passing from the Old to the New 
we meet many striking and interesting figures who combine the 
tendencies of both periods and interweave work of the highest 
order with much fanciful speculation. Foremost among these 
figures stands Kepler (i 571-1630). In him the youthful spirit 
of the Renaissance still lingers, and, with it, the hope to unriddle 
nature's secret by one bold effort and force an access into her 
inmost shrine {penetralia natures). His work is inspired by a 
lofty imagination which makes beauty the guiding motive of the 
world. But at the same time he displays an indefatigable zeal 
for clearness : immanental forces are driven further and further 
from the domain of nature; the differences of things assume a 
quantitative form : mathematics are not only to express nature 
symbolically, but to give an exact knowledge of her. And, de- 
spite his reverence for mind as the source of knowledge, there is 
a very clear appreciation of the value of experience and a pains- 
taking observation of minute detail. It is the discoverer's proud 
boast that his respect for a difference of eight minutes of arc 
paved the way for the reform of all astronomical science. Im- 
agination and science, the artistic and the mathematical turn of 
mind, unite in the conception of a harmonious universe; it was 
this idea that most effectually inspired Kepler to make the dis- 
coveries which have immortalised his name. 

With Galileo (1564-1641), on the other hand, we at once 
breathe the air of the Enlightenment. Here the domain of ex- 
act science is freed from all fanciful speculation and Nature is 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 351 

purified from all psychical admixture. On the whole, during the 
second and third decades of the seventeenth century, the new 
movement gains visibly in strength and independence. The 
year 1625 witnesses the appearance of Hugo Grotius's magnum 
opus which not only sets natural law upon a systematic basis, 
but, more generally, proclaims with no uncertain voice the ad- 
vent of a new thought. The same disposition manifests itself 
contemporaneously in France, and also in England. A new 
spirit is awaking: all that is now needed is a great thinker to 
help it into full self-consciousness and bring life wholly under its 
control. Such a thinker we find in Descartes. 

(b) The Leaders 0} the Enlightenment 

(a) DESCARTES 

Descartes touches only casually upon the problems and in- 
terests of human life. None the less, he has a right to be included 
among the thinkers whom we are seeking to portray. His phi- 
losophy is no mere erudite research, or work possessing a merely 
technical interest; for through its influence a new way of 
thinking is evolved which wholly transforms the spiritual out- 
look : in Descartes's work we have the victorious emergence, in 
full strength and clearness, of the spirit which was to dominate 
the future centuries and stamp an enduring impress upon man's 
spiritual life. 

From his youth upward Descartes was dominated by an ar- 
dent passion for complete clearness. This it was which rendered 
him such an enthusiastic devotee of mathematics and at the 
same time made him conscious of the intolerably unsatisfactory 
condition of science as handed down by scholasticism: chaotic 
confusion, revolution in a perpetual circle, artificial distinctions 
rather than fruitful solutions — above all, a lamentable want of 
certainty and fixity. A profound scepticism is awakened which 
strikes at the very roots of knowledge, nor are the resources of 
the existing order in any way adequate to satisfy the demands 



352 THE MODERN WORLD 

of an energetic thinker. There is no confidence in the authority 
of historical tradition; indeed, the authorities themselves are 
full of contradictions; as for the senses, apparently our most 
trustworthy source of information about reality, they may de- 
ceive us, and not only in this or that detail, but in the presenta- 
tion as a whole: witness dreams, or better still, the fancies of 
fever-patients. We do indeed trust to logical chains of reason- 
ing, but is this trust justified ? Is it not possible that a mysteri- 
ous Power should so have constructed us that our very obedi- 
ence to the laws of our nature should lead us into error ? In a 
word, there is nothing we can trust: no conviction so estab- 
lished but now shows signs of giving way. Doubt remains, ap- 
parently, in full possession of the field. From such a painful 
position there could be only one means of escape : the discovery 
of an absolutely fixed point, a point such as Archimedes sought 
to serve him as a fulcrum for moving the earth; only from such 
a point would it be possible to bring any certainty into knowl- 
edge. But turn where we will, where are we to find such a 
point? It cannot be outside us; we can look for it only in our- 
selves, and we find it here in thought, in mental activity. Any 
particular assertion, in fact all the content of our thinking, may 
be erroneous, but the fact remains that in thinking erroneously 
we are still thinking. Even when we doubt, we are thinking, 
and so even doubt itself confirms the fact of our thinking. In 
thinking, however, there is involved the thinking subject, the 
Ego — not derived from it by a wearisome process of inference, 
but immediately present in it. Thus the maxim, "I think, 
therefore I am" (cogilo, ergo sum) has to bear the weight of the 
whole philosophical superstructure; the fulcrum we have 
sought is none other than the thinking subject itself. It is here 
that philosophy must take its stand, and find a starting-point for 
all further development. 

This may seem a simple line to take, but in the energy and 
thoroughness with which it is followed up, it betokens nothing 
less than a complete revolution. For whereas formerly the world 
was the fixed point, and the problem was to justify the transi- 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 353 

tion to man, now the starting-point is the Ego and we have to 
explain the transition to the world. This change not only affects 
the method of inquiry; it gives an entirely new content to reality. 
— Descartes cannot, however, use the Ego as the basis of his 
world-philosophy without further strengthening our ground for 
belief in its capacity; and his point is that if we are to have full 
confidence in our reason, there must be a God, an Absolute 
Reason, making our finite reason worthy of trust. He therefore 
seeks to prove the existence of a divine Being, an Infinite and 
Almighty Intelligence. Of such a Being, veracity is of the very 
essence. He cannot lead our reason astray, if it conscientiously 
obey the laws of its own nature. But this it can do only by re- 
fusing to admit as true anything that is not just as evident, just 
as clear and distinct, as is the implication of our own existence 
in the fact of thinking. Here we have a safe criterion, and at the 
same time an incentive to undertake a most thorough sifting of 
all that has been transmitted to us from the past as true. Error 
no longer seems to be a necessity of our nature, but rather to be 
explained by the fact that the impetuosity of our desire for 
knowledge urges us to a conclusion before we have attained the 
necessary degree of clearness and distinctness. But in that case, 
we can avoid error, if we will, by bridling our impetuosity and 
practising a stern self-discipline. Though we cannot reach the 
whole truth, yet the truth that we do reach may be unadulterated 
and trustworthy. So self-criticism does not originate with Kant, 
but appears at the very outset as a main requirement of modern 
science and modern culture. 

The proofs by which Descartes supports these contentions are 
in many respects open to criticism; the grounds he gives for be- 
lieving in the existence of God are almost wofully unsatisfactory. 
But when a great thinker produces proofs the inadequacy of 
which is obvious even to the most average intelligence, we may 
always surmise that at the back of the proofs he adduces there 
is something original, axiomatic, intuitively certain, and that he 
is impelled by an inward necessity for which he cannot find the 
right expression. Descartes, feeling human reason to be the 



354 THE MODERN WORLD 

source of all knowledge and the criterion of reality, was natu- 
rally influenced by a strong desire to ground it securely in the 
Universal Reason. The inevitable result was a cir cuius in 
demonstrando, and this circle again points to a discrepancy in 
first principles; still, the immediate purpose was attained: the 
philosopher was now fortified in his own conviction and could 
enter upon his work in all confidence. 

The task that presents itself is first and foremost a thorough- 
going revision of the problem of knowledge: nothing can be 
counted as knowledge that does not satisfy the demands of 
clearness and distinctness, but in bringing knowledge up to this 
standard, we immensely increase its lucidity, freshness and 
coherence. Mathematical procedure becomes the pattern 
for all scientific inquiry. As, in mathematics, we begin with 
what is self-evident and press forward step by step in a per- 
fectly sure sequence, never straying into the vague regions 
of the undefined, but keeping all our manifold data within 
the bonds of systematic arrangement, so now we must bring 
the same ideals into philosophy and scientific work generally. 
In so far as we do this, we may expect knowledge to show 
a perpetual advance, whereas the scholastic procedure ne- 
cessitated the same ground being covered over and over 
again. 

But Descartes does not only succeed in achieving a reform or, 
shall we say, a revolution in science; he inaugurates a new era 
of general culture. In the Middle Ages, culture was first and 
foremost a historical product. Reason could 4° nothing with- 
out receiving the support and sanction of the supreme powers — 
tradition and authority. Now, however, there arises a culture 
the basis of which is man's own intuitive insight and the reason 
which dwells within him. If only that is to be good and true 
which is immediately evident to our reason, much that has hith- 
erto been reckoned as a solid and valuable possession must 
indeed lose its importance, and we run the risk of hasty nega- 
tions and an extreme radicalism. There is, however, a posi- 
tive and constructive side to this criticism of the traditional 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 355 

status, a discovery of new standards and values, a more 
searching and original treatment of the problems of human 
existence. 

The main result of the desire for clearness is seen in man's 
changed conception of his own being and of the relation between 
nature and spirit. As the claims of thought become more im- 
perative, they prove fatal to that conception of body and soul 
which had been hitherto prevalent — a conception which re- 
garded them as mutually inseparable, but endowed the material 
factor with inward forces and impulses, whereas the spiritual 
was left vague and undefined, at the mercy of any material meta- 
phor. In proportion as each began to be more clearly defined 
and referred back to a single principle, the impossibility of con- 
necting them in any immediate way became apparent. The es- 
sence of soul is conscious activity — thinking in the wider sense 
of the term; the essence of body is extension in space. The 
soul's activity is reflective: it is always rounding back upon 
itself, or rather, it remains self-centred even when its endeavour 
appears to be outwardly directed. The action of bodies, on the 
other hand, consists in their mutual contact and interaction. 
The soul is essentially indivisible; matter, as spatially extended, 
is infinitely divisible. Thus dualism becomes a necessity; and, 
however true it is that man could not rest satisfied in it forever, 
it was yet an inevitable stage in his progress, and a stimulus to 
further effort. Especially has it rendered valuable service by its 
clear separation of mind from matter, thus necessitating a vigor- 
ous and clear development of the two departments, each along 
its own line. Now for the first time each can be explained from 
its own particular context, the psychical psychologically, and the 
physical by physics. It was this which first made possible the 
exact sciences and a self-interpreting psychology. Again, as 
regards the social life, this separation of mind from matter was 
the most important agency in restraining the barbarous crusade 
against witchcraft, a crusade supported by the adherents of all 
the religious confessions. Its chief opponent, Balthasar Bekker, 
was an enthusiastic Cartesian, and even in the criminal courts 



356 THE MODERN WORLD 

themselves the influence of the enlightened Cartesian position 
can be directly traced. 

This separation of the psychical from the physical necessi- 
tated an important understanding concerning the demarcation 
of boundaries. The sense-properties of things — the rich variety 
of colours, sounds, etc. — which had hitherto been looked on as 
inherent in the things themselves, prove on closer examination 
to be contributed by the soul, and to be the reactions with which 
she responds from the storehouse of her own inner nature to 
the stimulus from outside. The wonderful magic of nature 
which so delights and enchants us does not really belong to her, 
but is lent her by the soul, which clothes with this splendid gar- 
ment the inanimate world of matter and motion. Nature thus 
loses all soul and psychic quality; she stands over against man 
as something strange and alien; before her immensity, the 
sphere of the soul threatens to shrivel into a contemptible small- 
ness. But to Descartes himself this turn of things seems more 
suggestive of gain than of loss. Nature, freed from all psychic 
elements, can at last become quite transparent to thought. She 
now presents herself as a collection of tiniest atoms endowed 
from the outset with a power of movement; she becomes a sys- 
tem of simple powers and laws, a great piece of machinery, far 
superior in its exquisite delicacy of adjustment to any human 
contrivance, while yet its separation from such is only a ques- 
tion of degree. Even the most intricate organism is nothing 
more than a machine of the highest possible degree of perfec- 
tion; if the old physicists made the organism their starting- 
point for a comprehension of nature generally, now the organic 
must find its place in a scheme that is purely mechanical. The 
actions of material bodies are not determined from within, but 
are dependent on a stimulus from without; nature is one vast, 
immeasurable network of reciprocal relations. This transforma- 
tion of nature into an inanimate mechanism made upon later 
generations a general impression of artificiality and lifelessness, 
but, at the time, the prevalent feeling was one of pride and de- 
light in the control of nature by means of our ideas, and — sec- 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 357 

ondarily — in its subordination to our purposes. For it was not 
till nature had been reduced by analysis to its simplest elements, 
that it was at all possible to carry out Bacon's programme of 
controlling it through the insight and skill of man. Des- 
cartes did not neglect the technical aspect of the question; his 
correspondence shows convincingly to what an extent he busied 
himself with technical problems. But in the last resort, he made 
all utilitarian considerations yield place to the value of knowl- 
edge for its own sake, to the joy of illumining those regions of 
nature which would otherwise remain in darkness. He was the 
first to give a systematic and precise interpretation of nature in 
terms of natural law. 

The autonomy thus obtained by nature is accorded equally 
to the soul. Though with Descartes the soul is deprived of all 
extension in the universe and is strictly limited to man, it be- 
comes thereby, only the more certainly, underived and inde- 
pendent. No outside influence can reach it, save with its own 
co-operation; all outward expression in life must originate in 
the depths of its own being. But this would be impossible if it 
were empty to begin with. To be independent, it must have an 
original endowment of its own, a secure heritage of indubitable 
verities, of "innate ideas." Though we cannot become clearly 
conscious of them until we reach a certain level of development, 
yet they are there from the beginning, directing our effort. The 
doctrine of innate ideas is indispensable if we wish to maintain 
the self-sufficiency of the soul and the independence of thought. 

We need go no further than this doctrine to see the supreme 
importance which attaches to intellect in the Cartesian con- 
ception of the soul. This predominance is due to a gradual 
and unnoticed change in the meaning of thought. From being 
at the outset the fundamental energy of the whole soul with the 
very general meaning of conscious activity, it narrows into the 
specialised meaning of conceptual thinking, the activity of 
knowledge. Intellect is more important than sense-perception, 
since the latter is not a purely self-conditioned form of conscious- 
ness, but is also conditioned from without. It also takes prece- 



358 THE MODERN WORLD 

dence of will, since willing involves a thinking and knowing. 
So knowing presents itself as the nucleus for the development of 
the whole life of the soul, a development through which our 
entire existence is brought to the stage of self-determined activity. 
Our happiness, too, seems to be entirely bound up with our 
thinking. Scientific insight gives us power over our feelings, 
and a remedy for all pains and sorrows. For it shows us that the 
things outside us are not subject to our control, and what we 
know to be impossible cannot rouse our interest. Our thoughts, 
on the other hand, are within our own power; we can concen- 
trate them on the infinite universe, and in the knowledge of its 
greatness our own being expands. "When we love God, and 
through Him feel our union in spirit (voluntate) with all created 
things, then the greater, nobler and more perfect our concep- 
tion of these things, the more do we value ourselves as being 
parts of the perfect Whole." At first sight these seem only 
casual remarks, but they are faithful to the spirit of the system, 
and indicate clearly the line of advance which was to receive its 
classical expression in the life-scheme elaborated by Spinoza. 

There is much in Descartes that is incomplete; but to urge 
this as a reproach against the genius who opened up new worlds of 
thought would be thankless and perverse. On points of supreme 
importance he has not only thrown out most valuable sugges- 
tions, but has determined movements of far-reaching import. 
The modern tendency to start from the thinking subject, the 
establishment of a rationalistic culture, the precise investigation 
of nature with its leaning toward mechanical conceptions, the 
self-centredness of the psychical life with its exaggerated appre- 
ciation of the intellect — these things all owe their philosophical 
foundation to Descartes. Much of it seems to us to-day less 
characteristic and less great precisely for the reason that it has 
become a component part of our being and we take it as a mat- 
ter of course. Moreover, the smoothness and clearness of ex- 
position often make us forget the profound and original charac- 
ter of the content. Whether at the same time certain essential 
problems have remained untouched, whether the triumph of 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 359 

simplicity has been purchased at the cost of ignoring whole 
groups of facts, we will not here discuss. In any case, Descartes's 
genius for clearness and simplicity makes him the best guide to 
our study of the peculiarities of the Enlightenment. In Des- 
cartes we see both the motives which impelled the rise and 
growth of the movement, and the difficulties attaching to it from 
the very outset. There can be no better starting-point for estima- 
ting alike its greatness and its limitations. 

We cannot pass from Descartes to Spinoza without at least 
mentioning certain typical thinkers among his contemporaries. 
Thomas Hobbes (1 588-1679), one of the most consistent think- 
ers of any epoch, made it his special work to extend to the whole 
of our world the mechanical conception of nature which he had 
helped to establish. This is the real bearing of his attempt to 
rid the soul, no less than the State, of all inwardness of life and 
wholeness of conception, and to view it in an entirely new light 
as a mechanically-propelled contrivance. This view he has 
maintained with admirable vigour and clearness, though, it must 
be confessed too, in a decidedly narrow spirit. Thinkers who 
in this fashion stake everything on the development of one single 
fundamental conception usually find few unconditional support- 
ers and found no school. But they stamp themselves with all 
the force and clearness of a distinct type upon the whole domain 
of man's activity. They are ever ready with question and an- 
swer wherever their problems are seriously discussed. Thus 
Hobbes influenced Spinoza and Leibniz ; in the eighteenth cen- 
tury he was held in high esteem especially by the French En- 
lightenment, and he has commanded the attention of our own 
century right up to the present day. He always finds friends; 
he has always something to give, even to his opponents. 

More helpful for the understanding of our human life are the 
religious movements called into being by Descartes's victorious 
championship of the modern spirit. Religion is unable to com- 
ply with the new demands for mathematical clearness and dis- 
tinctness; must she, then, fall, or will she find new ways of prov- 



360 THE MODERN WORLD 

ing her truth? Pascal (1623-1662) seeks such proof in }eeling y 
which he regards as the root of life and the source of all imme- 
diate certainty; if religion takes a firm stand here, then all the 
doubts of science and the contradictions of daily experience are 
powerless to affect her. The religious life becomes more tender 
and emotional, but with all its mildness, it remains vigorous and 
healthy because it is rooted in the moral sentiment, which it de- 
fends against Jesuitical sophistry in the most courageous way. 
Religion brings into our life a constant agitation, a note of 
breathless expectancy, in that it first awakes men to a full con- 
sciousness of the misery of human existence, and then raises them 
clear above it by enabling them to lay hold on Infinite Love. Its 
revelation of man's possible greatness is the first thing that 
brings home to him his littleness, but on the other hand, it is his 
littleness which first makes him fully conscious of his greatness. 
"Who is unhappy at not being a king save a king who has been 
dethroned?" In such a mood there is a marked tendency to 
oscillate between extremes, to run from one side to the other, to 
doubt and yet be certain, to seek and yet have. "Thou wouldst 
not be seeking me hadst thou not already found me." So there 
arises a religion of personal sentiment and inward experience, 
a purely individual concern, which does not set up any new 
spiritual order and is, therefore, not in opposition to any exist- 
ing ecclesiastical organisation, but finds its place and does its 
work within such organisations. This was not the Reformation 
spirit, able to lift the world out of old ruts and set it upon new 
paths; but in helping to keep alive the true spirit of religion in 
face of all the outward ceremonial of ecclesiasticism it has ren- 
dered and still continues to render very valuable service. 

Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) deals with kindred problems, but 
in a very different spirit. Christianity and Reason seem to him 
irreconcilably at variance; no religion is so much opposed to a 
solution in terms of reason. It is especially the problem of evil 
— the difficulty of reconciling the unspeakable misery of the 
world with the belief in an almighty and all-righteous God — 
which is always occupying him and estranging him from any 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 361 

dogmatic creed. But since at the same time he is filled with a 
profound mistrust of man's knowing capacity and even of his 
moral soundness, he is not willing to dispense with the support 
of religion; only it should be simple and tolerant, and find its 
main function in the purification of the inward life. But even 
in his affirmations, he shows so much scepticism, so much bi- 
ting sarcasm, so much pessimistic understanding of the human 
soul, that even his personal honour was often impugned, though 
we believe unjustly. In any case, we have here the origin of a 
peculiar type of thought which persisted right through the 
eighteenth century; a no less distinguished person than Fred- 
erick II was an enthusiastic admirer of Bayle. 

In France, religious development falls into an unfortunate 
predicament. On the one hand, an ostentatious ecclesiasticism 
has to be kept up for political reasons, and a court-theology of a 
showy kind is developed (Bossuet). On the other hand, the 
wider public becomes increasingly estranged from religion and 
views its problems with an easy unconcern. But if this outward 
and superficial treatment of religious things is the outstanding 
feature of modern France, it is only fair to remember that it is 
just the French spirit which has experienced a particularly strong 
reaction against it. Stern monastic discipline, unconditional re- 
nunciation, severest penance — nowhere in the modern world 
have these things had a greater development than in France. 
"Nowhere do the extremes of the French national character 
come more clearly to light than in the sphere of religion. The 
reverse side of its worldliness and pleasure-seeking, its scoffing 
superciliousness and its audacious denials, has been, in all peri- 
ods of its history, the seriousness of a stern and often harsh re- 
ligious sentiment. Verified in the individual's own inward ex- 
perience, it has schooled countless numbers to penance and puri- 
fication. In public life, it has waxed into fanaticism, tyranny 
and persecution, and has left upon French history in the course 
of the centuries a dark impress of cruelty" (Lady Blennerhas- 
sett). 



362 THE MODERN WORLD 

(/3) SPINOZA 

(aa) Introduction. — The remarkable fortunes of Spinoza's 
philosophy are of themselves sufficient indication of its pecu- 
liarly complex character. It is the natural outcome of the En- 
lightenment and completes certain tendencies of that move- 
ment. It is with Spinoza first that the Enlightenment succeeds 
in producing a really great conception of the world. Spinoza 
first shows it the way into that which is most inward and essen- 
tially human. But in spite of this, his philosophy was not ac- 
cepted by the period itself nor allowed free room for develop- 
ment. Not only adherents of orthodoxy, but free-thinkers of the 
broadest type, such as Bayle, flatly refused to consider it. 
Its opportunity arrived only when people began to weary of 
the Enlightenment and find its way of thought too narrow. 
Then began a period of ardent enthusiasm for Spinoza : a new 
generation had found in him the classical expression of its con- 
viction and its faith. Consequently much has been read into 
Spinoza, but still there must have been in him something more 
than the Enlightenment had attained to, or the great German 
poets could never have held him in such warm veneration. 

It is curious, too, that Spinoza should have received honour 
from such widely different and even opposed quarters. Relig- 
ious and artistic natures, speculative philosophers and the em- 
piricists of science, idealists and realists and even materialists, 
have felt a common sympathy in their appreciation of Spinoza. 
This, of course, was possible only because each saw in him 
something different, but the possibility of these different inter- 
pretations must in last resort be due to something in the philos- 
opher himself. But how can we explain this, seeing that before 
everything else he strove after unity, and that his system appears 
to be so eminently self-contained ? Let us see whether a closer 
examination may help us to solve, or at least to lessen, a diffi- 
culty which at first sight appears so perplexing. 

(bb) The World and Man. — It is the relationship of world and 
man that constitutes the central problem for Spinoza; the rela- 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 363 

tionship is dealt with more particularly in his great work, the 
"Ethics." The exposition takes the unexciting form of a math- 
ematical demonstration, but its matter teems with life and 
movement, so that the fate of man is made to pass before our 
eyes as though in some magnificent drama. Spinoza begins by 
waging bitter war upon human pretensions. The world cannot 
reveal its true nature without a weeding out of all the human 
attributes that have been introduced into it. And when this 
process has been completed, we find ourselves left with an en- 
tirely changed idea of man: he has dwindled into an insignifi- 
cant detail in the vast machinery of the universe. But he is not 
left in this low estate. A path of escape opens out, leading to a 
new elevation, for he may conceive the world as a whole and be- 
come spiritually one with it, so as to appropriate to himself its 
greatness, its eternity and its infinitude. But this is possible 
only on condition that he utterly renounces all separateness and 
all desire after separateness, sinking himself completely in the 
universal life. Thus the final acceptance is not without an 
element of stern refusal, and the glad courageous note of the 
concluding strain is something very different from the voice of 
mere natural impulse. 

In his construction of the world Spinoza seeks to exclude all 
human contribution as tending to a perversion of the facts, and 
to find an interpretation of the universe in itself alone. All the 
oppositions of human thought must, therefore, be overcome 
within the unity of a single system. First and foremost falls 
away the opposition between the World and God. These are not 
different realities, but are related within the one and only reality 
as existence and essence, phenomenon and ultimate ground, 
nature as product and nature as producing power {natura 
naturata and natura naturans). God is Pure Being, the under- 
lying Principle of all particular forms, containing them within 
Himself in their entirety. We can, therefore, be more certain of 
Him than of anything else, and knowledge of Him is a necessary 
preliminary to all other insight. Understood in this sense, God 
has no need to go out of Himself in order to work upon things, 



364 THE MODERN WORLD 

but all working is within His life and essence. To use the tech- 
nical scholastic phrase, He is the Immanent Cause of things. 
So it is truer to say that the world is in God than that God is in 
the world. 

A God of this kind who comprehends in Himself the whole 
extent of infinity must not be conceived as being in any way like 
unto man. Even our highest spiritual activities, such as think- 
ing and willing, are far too closely connected with the world of 
phenomena to characterise that which is infinite and all-em- 
bracing. Moreover, it is impossible that God should make the 
welfare of man His chief concern, arranging everything for this 
special end, and, maybe, rewarding and punishing man according 
to his deserts. This would give far too petty and anthropomor- 
phic a picture of the Universal Being, besides being entirely 
opposed to the testimony of our every-day experience. For ex- 
perience teaches us that the world pursues its own course in 
complete indifference to the wishes and aims of man, and that 
good and evil fortune visit alike the just and the unjust; nor do 
storms, earthquakes and diseases spare even the best of men. 
Not only in all this is there no evidence of any special care for 
man, but, to speak more generally, all purposive action is un- 
worthy of God. It is precisely this which constitutes His great- 
ness, that He wishes for nothing outside Himself, His own in- 
finite being, which amidst all Its activity, unaffected by any 
temporal changes, is from everlasting to everlasting at rest in 
Itself alone. 

The world had always been pictured as torn and divided 
against itself, for man is wont to transfer to things themselves 
the oppositions which exist for his own feeling : as good and evil, 
orderly and chaotic, beautiful and ugly; in this way he falsifies 
reality and introduces division into what is really one uninter- 
rupted sequence. If things are no longer thus treated errone- 
ously, but are contemplated simply in themselves without the 
intrusion of any subjective valuation, everything fits together, 
and all manifoldness unites to form one single universal life 
grounded in the Eternal Substance. It is true that in the unfold- 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 365 

ing of this life, whether in nature or in the soul, we are concerned 
with purely individual occurrences, but these occurrences are 
systematically connected; not only are they bound together in 
an uninterrupted chain of causation, not only are simple and 
immutable laws at work through all the complexity of events, 
but the events themselves are in last resort nothing else than 
unfoldings of the Divine Essence, temporal manifestations of 
the Eternal Being, wave upon wave in the ocean of Infinity. 

Once reality has thus been welded together, we may hope for 
a transcendence of the opposition between the material and the 
spiritual, an opposition which Descartes had rendered intolerably 
acute. At the same time, we have to deal with the relation of 
subject and object, of thought and being, with the problem of 
truth. The older thought, reaching right back to Plato, found 
no difficulty in conceiving truth as the correspondence of our 
thinking with an object external to it. For the world about us 
and the nature within us seemed to be akin, our own life expand- 
ing through the foreign elements it appropriated. The modern 
separation of world and subject precludes all such intimate 
interaction. Is there any means of bringing about a new kind 
of connection, not, indeed, through Descartes's artificial and 
roundabout devices, but in a straightforward and natural 
manner ? 

Spinoza believes that he can really provide such a means. 
For him, matter and mind are not different things, but only 
different aspects of one and the same thing, only developments, 
presentations, existential manifestations of one and the same 
fundamental substance. Each series runs its own course in 
complete independence of the other, without any interaction or 
mutual disturbance. But they are both in complete agreement, 
since the event is in essence one and the same whether it fall in 
the one series or the other. Such a shifting of the dualism from 
the real to the phenomenal seems to offer an easy solution to a 
difficult problem, and has the additional advantage of doing no 
injustice to either side, but allowing each to develop to the full 
its own peculiar nature. 



366 THE MODERN WORLD 

There ensues a unification of thought and being. They are 
not constrained to agreement from without, but they are in per- 
fect accord since each is grounded in the one Infinite Substance. 
In order to reach truth, complete truth, thought has simply to 
concentrate all its energy upon itself, allow no interference from 
outside, weed out all confused ideas, obey its own laws, relin- 
quish all anthropomorphism, and become a thought objectively 
controlled. And this is not feasible till all human prejudices 
and illusions are set aside. Then only do the order and connec- 
tion of concepts coincide with the order and connection of things; 
then only does the logical sequence of ideas answer point for 
point to the real sequence of events, and the world of thought 
become a faithful mirror of that which transpires in the world 
of matter. And this close correspondence proceeds, not from 
any external adjustments, but from the common grounding of 
the two series in one and the same substance. Thought-process 
and nature-process together constitute the whole of reality 
within which everything moves with calm, inevitable certainty. 
There are no dark corners left, but all things, even to their 
innermost recesses, are flooded with light. 

(cc) Man and his Littleness. — The universe could only obtain 
this predominance by being completely dehumanized and lifted 
sheer above the ideas and purposes of man. Man is hencefor- 
ward merely a part of the universe; he has no longer any 
special exemptions and privileges; he forms no "state within 
the state" (imperium in imperio). Just as his whole existence 
is only a single incident, a "mode" in the infinite universe, so 
his body is only a part of infinite extension, his spirit a part of 
infinite thought. As the body, so mechanical doctrine assures 
us, is only a cohesion of tiny atoms, so the spirit is only a plexus 
of simple ideas; it has no inner unity: the will and the under- 
standing are nothing apart from the individual acts of will and 
the individual thoughts. Moreover, since willing is not some- 
thing distinct from thinking, but only an aspect of thought itself 
— namely, the assertion of reality which is implied in every act 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 367 

of conception — the whole man becomes merely a mechanical 
complex of simple ideas, or, to use the philosopher's own expres- 
sion, a "spiritual machine" {automaton spirituale). This is a 
great advance in clearness. But it is purchased at the cost of 
surrendering all freedom of action; the decision which is osten- 
sibly ours is really only a product of this animated mechanism; 
our consciousness of freedom is merely due to the fact that very 
often, though conscious of our actions, we are ignorant of their 
causes, and therefore look upon them as uncaused. Accord- 
ingly, man's actions and desires should be treated as mere 
natural units, such as points, surfaces and solids. Commisera- 
tion and ridicule are equally out of place here; what we need is 
to understand. 

Such subordination of man to nature leaves man directly 
subject to natural laws. The same impulse which moves every- 
thing outside us regulates also our own activity: the impulse, 
namely, to self-preservation. It is not merely a characteristic of 
our nature: it is our nature. We can never look away from 
ourselves, never act in the interest of another, but only in our 
own interest. But what conduces to the preservation or advance- 
ment of the self, we term "useful." Hence all our actions aim 
at utility: the more capable a man is, the more energetically 
will he strive for his own advantage. 

But in the realm of experience, where individual beings meet 
and cross each other, now helping, now hindering, there arise 
numberless complications, and the machinery is in ceaseless 
movement. Here the passions (emotional dispositions) hold 
sway; here the struggle for happiness is fought out; here love 
blossoms forth and hate. Moreover, this whole subjective life 
of ours varies according to the pressure of the forces at work, 
and our relationships with men and things are measured by 
their performance-value, by the extent to which they enhance 
the fulness of life. Owing to the complex and intricate nature 
of reality this dependence may easily escape our immediate 
notice, but philosophical investigation soon discloses the neces- 
sary character of what seems to be arbitrary and lends support 



368 THE MODERN WORLD 

to those who would treat human life by the methods of natural 
science. 

The issue involves our pleasure and our pain, but what are 
we to understand by these terms? Pleasure is the condition 
which attends the spirit's passage toward greater perfection; 
pain, that which attends its lapse into a state of less perfection, 
the degree of perfection being measured by the intensity of the 
vital process. But pleasure and pain bring love and hate in 
their train. Love arises when an object is represented as the 
cause of pleasure; hate, when it is represented as the cause 
of pain. The quality of the experience stamps that which pro- 
duced it as either friendly or hostile. Hence, even in love and 
hate, there is no such thing as caprice; that which helps us, we 
are bound to love; that which harms us, we hate, and we are 
unable to change even the least particle of such love and hate. 
Love and hate, moreover, are not limited to the things which 
affect us directly. For the procedure of these things depends 
again on others which, though in themselves alien to us, may 
affect us indirectly through those things which are not alien. 
Our feelings may, therefore, be transferred to them, even though 
it be in a modified form. We love the friends of our friends, as 
helping those who help us. We love also the enemies of our 
enemies, because they tend to weaken that which harms us. 
Conversely, we hate the enemies of our friends and the friends 
of our enemies. These indirect relations reach further and fur- 
ther till they embrace all that is concerned with our experience, 
all that refers to it or is in any way an attendant circum- 
stance. Everything that is associated with agreeable experi- 
ences or reminds us of such — however outward and accidental 
the connection may be — occasions us pleasure, as its opposite 
gives us pain. In this circuitous way, even that which is most 
remote from us can excite pleasure or pain, love or hate. The 
sympathies and antipathies which even we ourselves are often 
at a loss to understand can easily be explained on the ground 
that the real reason for our love and hate is here veiled from our 
consciousness. But these passions, notwithstanding, are power- 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 369 

ful stimuli to action; we are bound to promote what is useful to 
us, to suppress and destroy what harms us. All the exhortations 
of the moralists abate not one jot of this necessity. A passion 
can only be overcome by a yet stronger passion, not by mere 
appeals and resolutions. So the machinery of the passions is 
laid bare, their tangled web is unravelled, and we have revealed 
to us a rich mine of worldly-wise reflections upon human 
nature. 

In all this Spinoza is content with mere description; he 
allows his subject-matter to unfold itself undisturbed by any 
obtrusive valuations of his own. But in our retrospective glance 
over his system as a whole, we cannot avoid forming some critical 
estimate, and we then see clearly how unsatisfactory is the posi- 
tion he assigns to man. For though it is possible in this machin- 
ery of life that the individual should here and there come to the 
front, yet in the main he is dependent on an alien and inscrutable 
world. We are incessantly tossed to and fro by causes outside 
ourselves, even as the waves of the sea are buffetted by opposing 
winds. Ignorant of our origin and our destiny, slaves of our 
passions, continually at discord and strife with one another — 
surely, taking all into consideration, we are in a state of misery 
and bondage. Is this the final conclusion, or is there a path 
from bondage into freedom ? 

(dd) Man and his Greatness. — Spinoza in truth effects an im- 
portant transition, but he has discovered the new path rather 
than explored it; he could not have gone far in it without finding 
a radical flaw in his system. He himself looks upon the new 
movement as a mere development of the original line of effort: 
he regards it as carrying a natural process to its logical conclu- 
sion, whereas in truth it effects a complete revolution and builds 
up a new world over against nature. According to Spinoza we 
must still aim at self-preservation and utility, but the utility 
must be real (re vera) and fundamental (ex jundamento), not the 
utility of ordinary life. It must be the utility which only knowl- 
edge can give, genuine scientific knowledge. Such knowledge 



370 THE MODERN WORLD 

lights up from within what would otherwise be strange and 
alien, teaches us to regard it in its fundamentals, gives it us as 
our possession, and puts us in a position to act with regard to it. 
We no longer feel things to be oppressive when we can evolve 
them through our own thinking; we are their masters, and alive 
with that full activity which means blessedness. But our think- 
ing can have this power only when we look upon ourselves as 
links in the chain of the universe and interpret our position in the 
light of the necessary and eternal order of things. This process 
does not attain its completion till we link everything to God, the 
fundamental Essence; and since from this point of view our 
thought conceives all manifoldness as the unfolding of the In- 
finite Substance, and views it immediately sub specie aeternitatis, 
our knowledge is no longer a knowledge dependent on logical 
trains of reasoning: it is intuitive. Such intuitive knowledge of 
God is incomparably the highest good and the ultimate goal of 
all true effort. It transmutes our whole being into speculative 
activity and lifts it into full freedom and fruition, at the same 
time dispelling all sorrow. Even the passions divest themselves 
of every painful element and become purified activities as soon 
as we penetrate their meaning clearly and distinctly, for we then 
see that their message is not one of painful renunciation but of 
glad endeavour. The whole life now becomes full of force and 
activity and joyous assertion. There grows up the ideal of a 
"free man" for whom all painful conditions are an evil. Sym- 
pathy, humility, repentance and the like may be useful on a 
lower level of life, but the higher level knows naught of them; 
here, we are told, "he who repents of a deed increases twofold 
his unhappiness and weakness." 

This is a high ideal to which we can only approximate by 
degrees. But even though it be difficult for the true knowledge 
to permeate us entirely, yet it can be sufficiently clear and dis- 
tinct to act as a cure for the passions. The more we regard the 
incidents of our life in their necessary context, the less will they 
disturb us, the more shall we dwell upon them in the light of 
thought, till the love and the hate which grew out of them will 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 371 

be dispelled, and the spirit be led into the peace of pure con- 
templation. So intuition, free from all will and desire, becomes 
the great means of emancipation from disturbance and pain, 
the great means of ensuring to our whole nature a passage into 
peace and blessedness. 

But such an experience can gain the coherency of a life in 
the Universal, it can become deeply spiritual, only by vir- 
tue of a connection with the intuitive knowledge of God, the 
Eternal and Infinite Being. It is this knowledge alone which is 
the consummation of our thought and life. Everything which 
advances our well-being, so we saw, necessarily awakens our 
love. For God, then, we shall feel a boundless love. This love 
is far superior to anything else which goes by the name. It is no 
ordinary love fraught with melancholy and passion, but rests 
entirely upon knowledge; it is "intellectual love" {amor intellec- 
tualis). Such love to God is genuine only when it demands no 
return. For God cannot, by His very nature, love any particular 
object in the human sense, since this would degrade His Being 
to a lower level. Therefore we read, "he who truly loves God 
cannot ask that God should love him in return." Without a 
complete surrender of all petty egoism there can be no freedom, 
no exaltation. It is with intellectual love that God loves Him- 
self — i. e., Eternity and Infinity in their fulness — and the intellec- 
tual love of the spirit for God is a part of the infinite love where- 
with God loves Himself. The universe thus gains a spiritual 
depth and an inner life, though truly of a very different kind from 
the life of the human soul. 

This union with God also ensures to man an eternal life. 
For immortality in the sense of a mere continuation of our natu- 
ral existence, Spinoza has no place. Only so long as the body 
lasts can the mind form ideas and remember the past; thus the 
dissolution of the body marks the termination of this individual 
and dependent life of the soul. But since the mind has its source 
in God, it cannot become altogether extinct when the body per- 
ishes ; in God there necessarily persists an Idea which expresses 
the eternal essence of it; it is indestructible as being an eternal 



372 THE MODERN WORLD 

thought of God. And the certainty of its imperishability is in- 
creased in proportion as it is transferred, in virtue of its true 
insight, from the phenomenal world to the world of the 
Eternal Substance. The stronger its imperishable part, the 
less power has death to touch it. Along this line of thought, 
the dissolution of the body is really a stripping off of mortality, 
an emancipation from the lower form of life; "only so long 
as the body lasts, is the mind liable to passions productive of 
sorrow." 

For our philosopher, however, the importance of immortality 
does not consist mainly in the hope it holds out of a better future, 
but rather in its power to lift us directly above all temporal con- 
ditions and enable us to lay hold of eternity within the confines 
of the present. It is with this thought in mind that he writes: 
"There is nothing on which the free man bestows less thought 
than on death, and his wisdom concerns itself not with death 
but with life." In order to act in accordance with the dictates 
of reason, we do not need the thought of immortality and retri- 
bution. Even if we did not know that we were immortal, we 
should still consider virtue and piety, courage and generosity as 
supremely important, for the man who is truly free does not act 
for the sake of reward but because he is impelled to act by a 
necessity of his nature; it is not the reward of virtue, but virtue 
itself which is blessed. Blessedness consists in the attainment 
by the spirit of its highest perfection, which can only be at- 
tained through the knowledge of God. "So the wise man 
can never cease to be conscious of himself and God and the 
world; he cannot die, but enjoys forever the true peace of the 
spirit." 

The life whose final note is one of such full and joyous con- 
fidence provides for both ethics and religion a new basis, and 
a characteristic expression peculiar to itself. It may appear 
strange that " Ethics" should be the title chosen for his principal 
work by a thinker who has been at such pains to eliminate all 
ethical valuations and reduce experience to the status of a purely 
natural process. But with Spinoza this inevitableness which is 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 373 

grounded in the Absolute Being is, for man, itself an ideal; we 
do not move from the outset in a sphere of genuine reality, but 
have to work our way upward to it. Our life is a battle between 
surrender to the phenomenal world and ascent to the world of 
reality, obstinate clinging to a petty individualism and willing 
absorption in Infinite Being. It is the seat of a momentous 
decision, a summons to concentrate our being in an act of con- 
version. The turning to the true knowledge is itself an act, an 
act of the whole nature. But at the same time it is a moral 
action. Only, in this case, morality is not so much concerned 
with this or that particular performance as with a new order of 
being. In direct contradiction to the doctrine which he con- 
sciously holds, Spinoza belongs to those thinkers who press upon 
man a great alternative and expect to be saved rather by a sud- 
den conversion than by gradual progress. At heart Spinoza is 
much nearer to Christian thought than is any other philosopher 
of the Enlightenment. 

His fundamental religious convictions, too, are far more closely 
akin to Christianity than his bitter opposition to ecclesiastical 
form might lead us to expect. It is quite in keeping with the 
transparent sincerity of his nature that he should be the first to 
bring out fully the hostility of the liberal, rational tendencies of 
modern thought to the old anthropomorphic views dependent 
on history and tradition. For Spinoza, God is not one particular 
Being among many, a personality in man's sense. He embraces 
and pervades the whole world. He does not incline especially 
toward man, but is active in every corner of the infinite uni- 
verse. He does not single out particular people for a special 
revelation, but reveals Himself in equal measure at all times 
and places, in the nature and the reason which are common to 
us all. Religion has no need of any historical faith. Spinoza is 
particularly hostile to any doctrine of the miraculous. He rejects 
the miracles not only on account of his scientific belief in the 
uniformity of natural law, but because his religious conviction 
makes him look upon this uniformity as an expression of the 
immutability of the divine nature. The common people may, 



374 THE MODERN WORLD 

indeed, oppose God to Nature, and see His power manifested 
most clearly in such extraordinary events as seem to contradict 
the course of nature; but the philosopher finds the great and the 
divine in the common round of everyday life, nor can he admit 
the validity of the distinction so long invoked in defence of mira- 
cles between a supernatural and an anti-natural. For a super- 
natural within the natural sphere is itself anti-natural, and it is 
within nature, not outside it, that the material miracles are 
asserted to have taken place. So man's faith in miracles now 
begins to be shaken; prior to the recognition of nature's essential 
uniformity, they did not occasion the slightest difficulty; even 
the most radical thinkers of the Reformation-time never so 
much as called them in question. Descartes had indeed recog- 
nized the principle of the uniformity of nature, but either he did 
not perceive its logical consequences or he was too prudent to 
give expression to them. 

But, despite all his divergences from its ecclesiastical form, 
Spinoza is yet very close to Christianity in the central doctrine 
of his thought — the doctrine of God's indwelling in the world, 
and the living presence of the Divine Spirit in every place. He 
does, indeed, find it incredible that God, the eternal and infinite 
Being, should have taken on our human nature, and he does not 
consider it necessary to know Christ "after the flesh," i. e., in 
His historical Incarnation; but "it is a very different thing when 
we come to speak of that Eternal Son of God, i. e., the Eternal 
Wisdom of God, Which has revealed Itself in all things, and 
mostly in the human spirit, and most of all in Jesus Christ. 
For without it no one can attain to blessedness, since it alone 
teaches us what is true and false, good and evil." That the 
human spirit should be exalted above all other forms of being 
and Jesus above all other men, is a presentation which stands in 
curious and striking contradiction to the general teaching of the 
philosopher which proclaims the impartial working of God 
everywhere in the universe. But Spinoza is greater than his 
theories, and his world is too rich to be contained within the 
framework of his ideas. We might even say that nowhere is he 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 375 

greater than when he contradicts himself, i. e., when the inner 
necessities of his nature compel him to go further than his own 
teaching. 

(ee). Appreciation. — That Spinoza produced a deep impression 
and still has power to influence men's minds can be partly ex- 
plained by the character of his system. His thought has a dis- 
tinct trend toward the great and essential, toward the simple 
and genuinely human. All his work is inspired and sustained 
by the objective compulsion of facts; so strong is their hold on 
the thinker that they leave no room for subjective feeling and 
reflection; even the mightiest revolutions are all accomplished 
with the tranquillity characteristic of a natural process. But 
this does not imply any lack of soul in the system; throughout 
there is a mighty personality at work, breathing life into the dry 
bones of concepts and doctrines. It is true that in the elabora- 
tion of these concepts Spinoza employs the heavy armoury of 
science and his thought flows in connected sequences which are 
sternly closed against all intrusion. There is nothing sudden 
and immediate: one stone is fitted securely to another. But 
where his work reaches its highest level, there are illuminating 
glimpses which break through formal limitations; there are 
intuitions which set the soul free; and these are not only the 
best but the most convincing parts of his system. Here more 
than anywhere else the philosopher greets us as a sage, a sage 
who treads our modern world and uses modern methods. But 
the heroism required of this sage was of no distinguished or 
dazzling kind: he had merely to preserve, in a life marked by 
renunciation and conflict, that repose and loftiness of spirit 
which his scientific convictions demanded of him. And this he 
did. An absolute harmony of life and teaching gives to his 
career that complete truthfulness which we admire in the an- 
cients even as we deplore its absence in so many modern thinkers. 

But to honour Spinoza's greatness does not imply a blind 
adherence to his system. Often, indeed, we must win our way 
to what is great in him through many difficulties of interpre- 



376 THE MODERN WORLD 

tation. He shares, too, the failing of his time : when he sees a 
new ideal which he believes to be necessary, he deems it far too 
easily and quickly attainable. With one stroke he thinks to cut 
the Gordian knots which have been the perplexity of every age. 
His treatment is consequently too meagre and concise; unfor- 
tunate complications arise: priceless truths are found side by 
side with doubtful and even erroneous assertions. But from 
defects in actual achievement we may turn to the creative and 
impelling forces of his spiritual nature; and when we sound 
these depths, we shall recognize in Spinoza, however keen our 
criticism of his doctrines, a Master who is entitled to our lasting 
veneration. 

Fascinated by the grandeur and self-sufficiency of his con- 
ception of the world, Spinoza seeks to eliminate from it every 
element of division and to fuse all manifoldness into one extremely 
simple presentation. God and world, soul and body, thinking 
and willing, must be wholly unified or even identified. Now, 
did Spinoza's system really reach a unity of this kind ? A first 
impression may incline us to say, Yes, but this impression is not 
borne out by a closer examination. There cannot possibly be 
a complete harmony or unity between world and God, so long as 
individuals have no more than the illusive appearance of inde- 
pendent existence in relation to the universal life. The illusion 
however, according to Spinoza, persists tenaciously throughout 
all the phases of human life : we have to exert our utmost force 
of thought to free ourselves from it. But whence comes its 
power, if all manifoldness is really only within the universal 
life? 

Soul and body, again, were simply to represent different sides 
of the same being; spiritual life and natural process were to 
run parallel, one equally important with the other. But in truth 
Spinoza has nowhere succeeded in giving them this equality; 
he has subordinated either spirit to nature or nature to spirit, 
the former in the original outlining of his system, the latter in 
its conclusion. For, at the outset, he makes nature the core of 
reality. The laws of her mechanism widen till they become 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 377 

universal laws dominating even the human soul. This soul is 
not the manifestation of a new life, but merely a wakening to 
consciousness of the material world, a reflex activity attendant 
on natural process. There is an unmistakable tendency here to 
naturalism, even materialism. The later and concluding parts 
of the "Ethics" are in a very different strain. There we find 
that conversion and deliverance can be attained only when 
thought reaches a level of complete independence toward nature 
and has a genuine existence of its own in the light of which 
nature becomes a mere phenomenal manifestation of the primal 
cause. When life finds its highest completion in the contem- 
plation of God, and the very soul of the world-process is the 
Divine Love, we have a clear predominance of the spiritual. 
Thus the attempt at a consistent Monism breaks down, and we 
are left with two mutually hostile positions. 

Again, knowledge and will were to coalesce, for the act of 
will was completely included in the process of knowledge. But 
when knowledge takes in the whole life, it becomes more than 
mere knowledge. When we understand by knowledge man's 
true means of self-preservation, something that transforms his 
whole existence into activity, joy and love — then more is involved 
in it than mere intellectual activity; it serves to develop a pro- 
founder life, and to express a wholly self-sufficient spiritual ex- 
perience. From the attempted solution of the difficulty there 
springs up immediately a new and more arduous problem. 

Reality is, then, too complex to fit into the simple framework 
which Spinoza provides. Nor should we seek to make the world 
appear more simple than it really is. But, notwithstanding, 
there is excellent justification for Spinoza's attempt to discover 
in the world greater unity and inward coherence. This attempt 
stands out in striking contrast to the scholastic procedure which 
sought to solve its problems mainly by relating and distinguishing 
concepts, till its acuteness had, in the course of centuries, degen- 
erated into the merest artificiality. The dawn of a desire for 
greater unity, the tendency for the different aspects of reality to 
come together again, to reinforce and complement each other, 



378 THE MODERN WORLD 

to unite in forming one single, complete life — all this is like 
a return to the truth of nature, an awakening from lethargy and 
death. Shall we blame the philosopher because his solution of 
the problem was too hasty, or shall we rather rejoice in the last- 
ing impetus which his efforts gave to the thoughts of men ? 

If the world does not admit of such a simple adjustment, then 
neither can life be so speedily transformed into pure contem- 
plation, nor will the transformation be able to solve all the 
problems of our existence. But Spinoza, in his desire for a dis- 
passionate knowledge, is really seeking a new basis of relation- 
ship between man and reality, a reconstitution of human life. 
He feels the traditional ideals of conduct to be unbearably small 
and petty, since, whatever the breadth they may seem to have, 
they do not take man out of himself and the sphere of his own 
ideas, interests and emotions. To effect this, we need to acquire 
through genuine knowledge a closer intimacy with the universe; 
so Spinoza embarks upon a vigorous crusade against the egoism 
not only of individuals but of mankind as a whole. 

His exertions inaugurate a new phase in the world's develop- 
ment, a phase of reaction against a movement which reached 
far back into ancient Christendom and had attained its culmi- 
nating point in Augustine. Augustine, with his consuming thirst 
for happiness and the natural bent of a strong nature toward 
comprehensive views of the universe, had subordinated all the 
expanse and richness of existence to the salvation and bliss of 
man ; in so doing, he had brought a note of passion into every 
domain of life, had set all being aglow with the fires of will and 
endeavour. At bottom the conviction may still have persisted 
that man was created and preserved not for his own sake, but as 
belonging to a higher grade of reality, as member of a spiritual 
and divine order; but Augustine's own passionateness of dis- 
position had already been responsible for the admission of much 
that was human in the pettier sense of the word; and, in 
the course of time, this meaner element had tightened and con- 
firmed its hold upon human life. Our modern era has from the 
very outset regarded this conception of human nature as too sub- 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 379 

jective, as narrow, petty and untrue ; but it was not till Spinoza 
that its struggle for greater breadth and freedom found clear 
expression and support. Spinoza made it clear that the freedom 
was not to be gained by the stormy, aggressive methods of the 
Renaissance; it was an inward change that was needed, the 
discovery and development of a universal nature within man 
himself. And this universal nature Spinoza claims to find in 
knowledge; knowledge, when allowed a free development, puts 
man in possession of the objective significance of things, and so 
fills him with its infinity and eternity that all feeling of selfhood 
is entirely extinguished. It is knowledge which saves man from 
the petty egoisms and cross-purposes of our human striving, 
and leads us upward by a sure path into the clearer, purer air of 
reality and truth. 

/- But if the universe, immeasurable and unchangeable as it is, is 
to take such exclusive possession of our life, we are at once 
deprived not only of all choice but of all freedom; and the power 
of pure fact, of natural necessity, of fate, acquires an over- 
whelming predominance. Antiquity had fully recognized this 
power, but Christianity had undertaken, as the greatest of all 
its tasks, to lift man from a kingdom of fate into a realm of 
freedom. In the history of Christendom, however, we find the 
problem far too lightly considered; the opposition was not so 
much met and overcome as lost sight of in mystic exaltation. 
Spinoza enriched the conception of truth and gave deeper 
meaning to life by again insisting on the part played by nature 
or fate in our human existence. It is true that he thereby 
inclines to place exclusive stress on nature as the whole reality 
and to consider the truth of the material world as external to and 
distinct from our spiritual life, but the new turn which he gave 
to thought is important enough to outweigh any errors of detail. 
Moreover, here, as elsewhere, Spinoza's real meaning goes 
much deeper than his formal statement. It is not nature merely 
which he seeks, but something in and behind nature, a sub- 
stantial life and being. According to him, our ordinary life is far 
too superficial, and prone to self-deception and illusion. Our 



3S0 THE MODERN WORLD 

action can be true only in so far as we put into it our own being 
and individuality. We must, therefore, reach down to what is 
genuine in our nature. And this necessitates a reversal of the 
previous position, an appropriation of the eternal and infinite 
universe. It is just this which constitutes Spinoza's greatness, 
that for him the problem does not lie in this or that detail of hu- 
man life, but in the whole of it, in the man himself, and that 
he feels the necessity of outgrowing all the punctiliousness of a 
narrowly personal outlook, all that commonly passes as happiness 
— in fact, all considerations of use and purpose. 

Spinoza's thought is profoundly stimulating and suggestive. 
But it has often to be disengaged from the abstruse form in 
which it is expressed — a fact which sufficiently explains why his 
greatness was fully appreciated only when he came to be seen in 
proper perspective and his ideas were freely handled and dis- 
cussed. Under such treatment it was natural that his meaning 
should be resolved into its various implications, so that he would 
appeal to different people on very different grounds, and the more 
so because in him many different lines of thought converged, 
tending toward unity but not reaching it in any definite and 
conclusive fashion. So the controversies over Spinoza are likely 
to continue. But he will be ever revered as great by all who de- 
mand from philosophy not so much a closed system of concepts 
and doctrines as a fuller grasp of what is real in human nature 
and a fresher insight into the underlying mysteries of life. 

(7) LOCKE 

Locke's work (1632-1704) was carried on in an essentially 
different environment from that of the other leaders of the 
Enlightenment. He was one of a nation engaged in struggle for 
civil and religious liberty, a struggle in which he himself bore 
a decided part and which directly affected his personal fortunes. 
His thinking bears upon it the strong impress of a society whose 
distinctive genius he himself did much to strengthen and accen- 
tuate. 

Locke is by no means a complete exponent of the English 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 381 

spirit — in every great civilised nation there are reactionary 
forces running counter to its average type — still he undoubtedly 
represents the prevailing national tendency. The English 
school is averse to all bold speculation, and to any attempt to 
build up a new world. It frankly accepts the world as it finds 
it, seeks in a practical way to understand it, and to make life 
reasonable and happy without ever going beyond it. Attention 
is mainly concentrated upon man and his lot; the English poet 
(Pope) is but expressing the popular conviction when he desig- 
nates man as the proper study of mankind. The individual is 
regarded both as he is in himself and in his social relations, and 
the attempt is made to render both soul and society intelligible 
by reconstructing them from their simplest beginnings. It is 
this which constitutes the peculiar merit of the English Enlight- 
enment. The keener scrutiny and more accurate review of 
experience tend in the direction of excluding whatever has no 
sure hold in fact. Theory is closely linked with practice: the 
clearer light thrown upon what we really have and are necessitates 
a corresponding refashioning of life. All this may indeed limit 
the sphere of human life and endeavour, but at the same time, 
it shows that within these limits are possibilities hitherto un- 
dreamt of: the content of experience is rich enough in itself to 
satisfy every reasonable wish. Hence arises a characteristic 
mode of thought and conduct which works its way into the dif- 
ferent departments of life and makes itself a social force. It is as 
developed in England that the Enlightenment has become a 
world-power, and its later phases cannot be understood apart 
from the history of this English movement. 

Now Locke is the clearest and most effective exponent of 
the English type of thought. His chief concern is with the 
problem of knowledge. A philosophical discussion leaves him 
with a keen sense of the dire confusion of our present state of 
knowledge, and this conviction impels him to undertake a thor- 
ough investigation of its origin, validity and scope. The result 
of this investigation constitutes the first systematic attempt to 
depict the growth of knowledge in the mind of the individual. 



382 THE MODERN WORLD 

For an inquiry into the sources of knowledge means for Locke 
the tracing of its origin and growth in the mind : and the mind 
means nothing more than consciousness — conscious life. This 
conception of the problem — and it never even occurs to Locke 
that any other is possible — determines at once the character 
and outcome of the work. We are concerned with seeking out 
in consciousness the simplest elements of knowledge and tracing 
their gradual growth step by step till the whole structure be- 
comes perfectly intelligible and at the same time the limits of 
our human faculties are clearly marked out. It is obvious that 
consciousness does not bring its content with it ready-made, but 
only obtains it through contact with things; so there is an end 
to the doctrine of a fixed original endowment of the reason, the 
doctrine of innate ideas. Experience is the sole source of 
knowledge, experience obtained through the observation either 
of external objects or of our own inner states. The mind is like 
a blank sheet of paper which has yet to be filled in, or like a dark 
room into which light comes through the windows of the senses. 
The irreducible elements are the simple ideas: it is through 
their combinations and interrelations that the more complex 
mental structures are gradually built up. No knowledge is so 
complex as not to be explicable along these lines. Nothing must 
be admitted that cannot claim a place in this scheme: all that 
oversteps the limits assigned by such a conception of the prob- 
lem must be set aside as illusion. Whether Locke carried out 
his fundamental principle with perfect consistency, whether a 
knowledge of truth can be attained at all along these lines, is in- 
deed a doubtful matter; but even he who denies it is bound to 
admit the fact that this empirico-psychological treatment opens 
up a new and most fruitful view of the life of the soul and of 
human existence generally. To trace the actual development of 
the soul gives us a more intelligent view of our existence and a 
clearer notion of our powers. The problems of our life yield 
themselves far more readily to a practical and even to a technical 
form of treatment. Man wins power over himself and his 
environment. 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 383 

That knowledge of this kind cannot pierce to the real essence 
of things is Locke's settled conviction. What things are, as dis- 
tinct from what they seem to be, remains sealed from us forever. 
But there is no need to mourn this limitation, since the knowledge 
we have is quite sufficient for the main ends of our life which are 
practical and moral. We do not need to know all things, but 
only those which concern our conduct: "morality is the proper 
science and business of mankind in general." It would be 
foolish to despise the candle-light offered us and to demand 
bright sunshine when the candle gives us all the light we need. 

But here we come upon a contradiction. According to 
Locke's fundamental principles, life is to draw its whole content 
from experience; but in developing this point of view he intro- 
duces the reason, and this reason, which is conceived as inde- 
pendent of experience and exalted above it, increasingly tends to 
become the dominant factor. At the outset the supreme goal 
and the end of all endeavour is taken to be happiness in the 
sense of subjective well-being, and the value of an experience is 
measured by the happiness it brings with it: "things are good or 
evil only in reference to pleasure and pain." This was bound to 
lead to Epicureanism in one form or another. But at the same 
time Locke presents man as a reasonable being, with an inde- 
pendent inward life, and therefore with new problems and new 
standards. His real greatness is his faculty of resisting all merely 
natural inclinations at the call of the reason. "The great prin- 
ciple and foundation of all virtue and worth is placed in this, that 
a man is able to deny himself his own desires, cross his own 
inclinations, and purely follow what reason directs as best." 
Were it not for the fact that the English thinkers generally have 
supplemented experience by reason in some such fashion as this, 
they could hardly have been so effective as they were. 

Locke's views on human life, however, find clearer embodi- 
ment in his sociology than in his detached utterances on ethics. 
But here, too, only small treatises are available, and there is no 
attempt at systematic elaboration. Still one characteristic fun- 
damental conviction runs through all the variety of his thought, 



384 THE MODERN WORLD 

and it is this conviction which underlies the whole theory and 
philosophy of modern Liberalism. 

In tracing the development of the political and social com- 
munity Locke starts from the individual as being the element 
immediately given and most clearly apprehensible. It is only 
by thus starting from the individual and continually referring 
back to the individual that he can clearly define society and 
give it a reasonable meaning. The rooted idea of the State as 
prior to the individuals whom it embraces and welds together is 
rejected as confused and misleading. But the individual who 
now is to be responsible for society and to dominate it is not 
the mere natural man protrayed by Hobbes, but a reasonable 
personality; and the characteristic of the reason is its power of 
deliberation, decision and self-direction. This implies a com- 
plete revulsion from the idea which the ancients held concerning 
the reason. For they made reason to consist in the power of 
forming general ideas and acting according to them. The 
replacing of this conception by a conception of independence 
and the power of personal choice reveals the spirit of a new 
world. Even law is a support to freedom, despite its restraints. 
For that alone is to be recognised as law which has been deter- 
mined by the power that makes the laws, and this power is, in 
last resort, the will of individuals. So the restraint is self-im- 
posed, not enforced from without. 

In this building up of society from the individual we see very 
clearly the development of the modern conception of society as 
a free association; even the State is nothing more than a kind 
of society with definite aims and sharply-defined boundaries. 
The main task of the State is to safeguard the rights of its indi- 
vidual members and secure their freedom against all interfer- 
ence from without. Now since the independence of the citizen 
is more particularly bound up with the question of property, 
Locke considers that the function of the State is simply to safe- 
guard property. This seems a great fall from the old conception, 
and it paves the way for that self-seeking of the propertied classes 
into which the later Liberalism has often degenerated. But we 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 385 

must not forget that in the old Liberalism there was always, 
behind this question of property, the independent man of action 
to whom property was but the means of self-realisation. This 
gives the whole movement an idealistic turn, and supplies a mo- 
tive for incessant social activity. It is a great gain for the force- 
fulness and sincerity of life when the functions of the State are 
confined within narrow limits and as much liberty as possible 
is conceded to the individual. The national type of the Anglo- 
Saxon gives us the complete development of the State as the 
Enlightenment conceived it — a State founded on justice and 
individual freedom, as opposed to the State of the Renaissance 
founded on authority and tradition. 

But if a State is to be founded on justice and freedom, it must 
begin by clearing its path from the obstructions offered by exist- 
ing conditions; and here political theory comes to its aid with 
a close and penetrating analysis of the traditional order. It 
refuses to bow in blind obeisance to things as they are. It does 
not acknowledge authority qua authority, but insists that it shall 
be founded on reason. Only that which has justified itself to 
the reason and at the same time won man's free assent can exer- 
cise an inward control over his nature. Now the only justification 
for authority is its actual serviceableness : the place of the indi- 
vidual in the community is to be decided by the degree of his 
usefulness. There can be no authority, then, apart from rea- 
son, much less in opposition to it. Even paternal authority does 
not arise out of some mystic ordinance of nature, but is justified 
by the actual care of the father for his as yet irresponsible child. 
With this view a patriarchal system of government or a king- 
dom by the grace of God is wholly incompatible. The kingly 
office must justify itself by its services to the community. Prop- 
erty too must not be held arbitrarily; it is the reward of work. 
He who first claims something and expends his energy upon it 
has a right to hold it as his own. The economical value of 
things is also to be measured by the amount of work they exact; 
in proportion as civilisation advances, emphasis comes to be 
laid not so much on mere material as on the form given to it by 



386 THE MODERN WORLD 

human labour. Locke has here provided a philosophical basis 
for the modern movement in the direction of the technical and 
industrial arts. 

A strict adherence to this demand for reason, a development of 
all political and social relations from the starting point of the 
individual, and the insistence upon service — i. e., tangible and 
effective service — as the only true ground of individual prefer- 
ment would naturally bring the ideal State of Reason and Justice 
into harsh collision with the State of History and Tradition. 
The total elimination of every historical element, all tradition, 
hereditary title and so forth, would inevitably bring about a 
revolution. But Locke is far removed from any such rigorous 
consistency. The fundamental framework of society he tacitly 
accepts as reasonable; but in its detail finds much that is defec- 
tive and doomed to decay. Reason and history are not yet 
entirely dissociated as in a later phase of the Enlightenment; it 
is not revolution which is called for, but reform. 

Moreover, in establishing the independence of the individual, 
Locke does not mean to isolate him. It is only in union with 
other individuals, only as a member of society, that he can de- 
velop his reason and attain to happiness. Locke indeed recog- 
nises the power of social environment as it had never been recog- 
nised before. In addition to the law of God and the law of the 
State, he admits a third power, the law of public opinion, which 
he regards as a sure expression of reason. In our moral educa- 
tion, also, the judgment of our fellowmen, their approval and 
disapproval, is a most important factor; the arousing of a right 
sense of honour is the chief means of educating our moral char- . 
acter. "Reputation comes next to virtue." So the sense of 
political freedom — and this is characteristic of English life gen- 
erally — is balanced by an equally strong sense of social obliga- 
tion. The social constraint may not be so apparent, but its in- 
fluence perhaps reaches even further and deeper. 

It is in the province of education that Locke has rendered 
greatest service. Ratichius and Comenius before him had 
striven to establish a rational method of instruction. But the 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 387 

new leaven had hitherto been working within the old material, 
whereas with Locke it is brought directly to bear upon the facts 
of the living present. It is true that he gets no further than 
general outlines, and does not carry his principles to their ulti- 
mate consequences. But he initiated a movement which only 
needed to be taken up and carried further, to issue in the pro- 
gramme of Rousseau. 

The phase of the Enlightenment represented by Locke has a 
unique and distinctive character. It does not concern itself with 
the fundamental relation of man to reality, but disposes of this 
problem by accepting immediate impressions as true, and devot- 
ing itself to the fashioning of a life-scheme within a world already 
given. Locke's tendency to seek out the simplest elements or 
powers, and to derive thence the complex fabric of acts and 
events, naturally leads us to expect a complete dependence of 
life upon reason. We may take it that these powers do indeed 
tend to make life reasonable. Still to suppose that they can 
supply an adequate rationale of experience is to be indeed opti- 
mistic and to ignore all the more perplexing problems of the 
mental life. The view, moreover, lacks inward coherency. Its 
chief characteristic is that it makes all salvation depend upon 
the illuminating work of thought, but thought is not alone in the 
field; thought is constantly being supplemented, limited and 
modified by the constitution of our social life. If logical con- 
sistency demands a break with this constitution and a complete 
reversion of social arrangements, then logic must give way. 
Immediacy of impression and a practical knowledge of men 
soften down all angularities of abstract ideas. Moreover, in 
Locke's views there is a dualism not merely of method but of 
content. The whole content of life is to be drawn from its imme- 
diate environment, i. e., experience; but all unobserved, just at 
the most critical points, a reason above experience is invoked, 
without any attempt being made to justify it, or to distinguish it 
from experience. Thus an empirical and a rational, a realistic 
and an idealistic standpoint are constantly coming together; 
sometimes the one predominates, sometimes the other. The 



388 THE MODERN WORLD 

authority he allows to mere impressions which have not been 
subjected to the clarifying processes of science makes Locke as 
a philosopher far more popular than any other important thinker, 
and, indeed, threatens to confuse the philosophical with the com- 
mon-sense standpoint of every-day life. Thought and life are 
here set on a plane of mediocrity, which, compared with lower 
levels, is estimable enough, and suited well the requirements of 
the time. The common-sense treatment becomes a source of 
danger and detriment only when its limitations are looked upon 
as final, and further exertions are discouraged through the treat- 
ing of very doubtful solutions as obvious and inevitable. No one, 
however, can fail to appreciate Locke's rich suggestiveness, or 
the seriousness, truth and sincerity which breathe in every page 
of his writings. 

(8). LEIBNIZ 

(aa). The Distinctive Character oj his Thought. — The Enlight- 
enment first makes its appearance in Germany with Leibniz 
(1646-1716), and at once assumes a very remarkable form. 
Astonishing breadth and universality — tenacious of everything, 
disdainful of nothing — a strong tendency to systematize and to 
stand by any idea once accepted, however much the immediate 
aspect of things might seem to be against it, a method which 
starts from the soul's inner life and seeks to explain everything 
from this standpoint — all this indicates a bold flight of creative 
spiritual activity and a radical transformation of the world as 
immediately given to us. At the same time a movement of this 
kind has dangers from which its predecessors were exempt: the 
danger of weighting itself with useless ballast and desiring to 
reconcile what is essentially irreconcilable; the danger of over- 
looking the immediacies of experience and of wandering in the 
trackless regions beyond; the danger, in short, of a self-opin- 
ionated, self -tormenting subjectivity. Where, however, these 
dangers are successfully met, we have creative work of the very 
highest order, which has lifted man's thought and endeavour to 
a sensibly higher level. 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 389 

Nowhere else in the Enlightenment do we find such breadth 
as in Leibniz. No other thinker lays such firm hold on the in- 
ward nature of things and strives so hard after systematic thor- 
oughness. In him the Enlightenment lays aside all the narrow- 
ness of mere opposition, nay, more, seeks to comprehend all 
oppositions and all manifoldness within itself; it would fain be just 
to the traditional scheme of life and fit old and new into a single 
world of thought. There are great dangers, no doubt, in such 
a course. Instead of reconciliation we may have mere compro- 
mise. A desire for uniformity may all too easily dull the edge of 
what is characteristic or distinctive; and, in the endeavour to 
be just to all other types, the thinker may easily be unjust to his 
own. Moreover, it cannot be denied that there was something 
of the courtier in Leibniz, the desire to avoid giving offence and 
to put things in the most conciliatory, comfortable and pleasant 
way possible. But at the same time we must admit that his 
attempts at peacemaking not only evince a lofty conception of 
the problem and a complete superiority to all the narrowness of 
mere party views, but also that they were prompted by an im- 
perative necessity of his nature. The two worlds which he 
wished to reconcile were each part of his own life. On the one 
hand, he was strongly attracted by the new movement in mathe- 
matics and the natural sciences which stirred his creative genius 
into fruitful activity; on the other hand, he had a sincere and 
native affection for the traditional forms of morality and religion, 
as only those can deny who fail to pierce to the ultimate mo- 
tives of his work. The problem he propounded was in no sense 
artificially devised ; it was forced upon him for his spiritual self- 
preservation — that the unity of his nature might be safeguarded. 
Whatever our doubts as to the plan and method of his under- 
taking, we are bound to hold his personal truth and honesty in 
the very highest esteem. 

There is another consideration which also leads us to exempt 
Leibniz from the charge of weakness usually characteristic of 
these obsequious compromises; his natural sentiment is allied 
with a thoroughly characteristic technical mode of thought 



390 THE MODERN WORLD 

which paves the way for a very original handling of his subject- 
matter. The key to this characteristic mode of thought is found 
in mathematics, or rather in the mathematical way of thinking. 
Mathematics had always played an important part in the En- 
lightenment, influencing both its abstract thought and also its 
general attitude toward life. But it is in Leibniz that we first 
realise the full extent of its influence. It was mathematics which 
had at the outset been the essential factor in determining the 
peculiar direction of the Enlightenment and supporting one of 
its most cardinal contentions; for, in the case of mathematics, 
it seemed proved beyond a doubt that we possess a knowledge 
which is innate, a store of eternal and universal truths within 
the soul. Nor are these merely isolated truths. The mind 
shows itself able to produce from its own resources a coherent 
system of thought. In the building up of this system a method 
is adopted of a very different kind from that of the scholastic 
logic. It is not content to be forever working upon a given 
material, but is constantly seeking to expand its material and 
promising ever new glimpses into the truth. In mathematical 
creation thought manifests itself as incontestably a productive 
power. The world of thought within us does not constitute 
a separate domain from the world outside. Rather the truths 
of mathematics are at the same time the fundamental laws of 
nature. Mathematics brings spiritual activity into close union 
with the outside world, and gives to thought the proud con- 
sciousness of carrying within itself the key to the universe, of 
apprehending directly in its own life the life of the great whole. 
This attitude of assertion involves negation in two directions: 
on the one hand, it is opposed to all blind subjection to tradition 
and authority; on the other hand, by teaching us to see things 
according to certain forms of thought, it strikes at the very roots 
of naturalism and materialism. Mathematics, more than any 
other agent, has taught reason to stand on her own feet and 
rejoice in the consciousness of her power. 

Such views as these were peculiarly congenial to Leibniz, 
and he developed them in a characteristic way. We must bear 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 391 

in mind that he was a mathematician before he became a philos- 
opher, and especially that the discovery of the differential cal- 
culus preceded the formation of his philosophical system. To 
the systematisation of his philosophical convictions he brought 
a mind saturated and possessed with ideas such as that of the 
infinitesimal, the potential, the continuous. He felt himself 
impelled to refine upon the previous views of the universe, to 
substitute flux and change for rigid inflexibility. Facts as we 
see them are not the whole. Away behind them lies the realm 
of possibility, of germinating force. Only through possibility 
and the conjunction of possibilities does the nature of actual 
fact become intelligible. Our conception of reality must be 
widened to include possibility — an expansion of a most vital and 
far-reaching kind. This recognition of possibility seems to lift 
from man a dead weight and immeasurably to extend the scope 
of his free initiative. There is also the discovery of the infini- 
tesimal, a discovery that Leibniz is particularly proud of. It is 
true that he is here taking up a line suggested by the whole 
trend of modern science, but he goes a great deal further than 
any one else, lifting the conception of the infinitesimal out of the 
realm of experience into that of metaphysics, and from the 
heights thus reached prescribing for experience the ends it 
should endeavour to realise. Still — through the newly opened-up 
world of the microscope and especially through the discoveries 
of Leeuwenhoek — it seems to him that even experience is seen 
to confirm, as far as it can do, the hypothesis of the infinitely 
small; so he boldly denies that there is any point at which 
matter ceases to be either divisible or organised. Behind every 
atom there is another and yet another, just as a harlequin takes 
off one dress only to reveal another beneath. Why should the 
limits of our perception be also the limits of nature ? Moreover, 
closely allied to this conception of the infinitesimal, is that of an 
all-pervading variety. Nowhere does nature repeat herself; 
nowhere are two things or two occurrences exactly alike. It is 
only a shallow, superficial view that thinks to detect complete 
likeness; as a matter of fact, the supposed likeness is only adif- 



392 THE MODERN WORLD 

ference of a less obvious kind, which, even at the limit, is still 
a vanishing and not a vanished quantity. 

And just as here an apparent opposition is resolved into a 
difference of degree, so, generally speaking, Leibniz's mathe- 
matically disposed mind is always endeavouring to change sup- 
posed oppositions into gradations, and for differences of kind to 
substitute differences of degree. Kepler had already made this 
point of view familiar, and now, through the concept of the 
infinitesimal, or infinitely little, it could at last be thoroughly 
and systematically worked out. Even the apparently irrecon- 
cilable admits of reconciliation by this method. For example, 
rest may be looked upon as the vanishing phase of a movement 
that has been continually growing less and less; the oppositions 
of good and evil, of true and false, are similarly handled. All 
rigidity and exclusiveness is banished from this world of thought; 
everything is brought into solution, and all opposing tendencies 
are completely reconciled. The idea of a continuity of all being 
and all life becomes vivid and impressive as never before, so 
that Leibniz has good reason to regard the Law of Continuity 
as his own especial contribution to philosophy. The attempt, 
again, to reconcile the natural and the spiritual admits of being 
viewed in quite a new light. For must not a closer examination 
show that here, too, there is a continuous gradation, an inclusion 
of both nature and spirit in a single universal life, an intimate 
relation between terms which at first sight seem mutually exclu- 
sive ? It is indeed a bold thought, but a great one. Whether it 
can make good its claim and avoid splitting upon the rock of an 
either — or, underlying our whole existence, is another question. 
Leibniz's arguments impress us by their marvellous skill and 
dexterity, but we do not always find them convincing. His general 
tendency, however, toward more finely graded and less rigid dis- 
tinctions is far more important than any special way he may have 
of applying it. It belongs essentially to the movement of our 
modern world, in which he is one of the most influential thinkers. 

(bb) Cosmology. — Leibniz's cosmology has points of connec- 
tion with Descartes's, but it was impossible for him to rest sat- 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 393 

isfied with Descartes's solution. There were two reasons why 
he should find it unsatisfactory: firstly, his own impulse was to 
seek a union beyond the separation of world and soul; secondly, 
in both these domains Descartes's conceptions seemed to him 
crude and rough-hewn. Accustomed as he was by his mathe- 
matical training to contemplate the world intellectually, matter 
had already lost for him its sensual, tangible reality. The phil- 
osopher of movement and of the infinitesimal found himself 
compelled to pursue his research even beyond those small bodies 
into which mechanics had resolved the universe. These bodies 
themselves must be subjected to further analysis and shown to 
contain a nucleus of independent life. So he presses beyond 
the physical elements to the metaphysical — to living unities or 
"monads." There can be no being which does not possess an 
"immanent" activity, a being-for-itself. Inward force, spiritual 
essence, is the fundamental constituent of all reality. There 
are not two worlds, the one seen, the other unseen, but the so- 
called natural world is but a "well-founded phenomenon." It 
is a projection of the unseen for the benefit of us finite spirits, 
who cannot grasp reality as a coherent whole by a purely spir- 
itual intuition. An Absolute Intelligence would not have any 
external world. This view regards the body as an aggregate of 
souls, that which is usually termed the soul being merely the 
central monad. This opens up a new solution of the problem 
of soul and body, spiritual and natural existence; they are not 
put side by side upon an equal plane, but are related rather as 
essence and appearance. In the more detailed development of 
his doctrine Leibniz deviates considerably from this idea, and 
often allows the material world more reality than it can con- 
sistently claim. But this does not detract from the originality 
of his system. Nature in her own domain suffers no disturb- 
ance, no interference; but the whole of this natural domain 
is itself only the phenomenal aspect of an underlying reality. 
All the mechanism of nature is purely in the service of 
spirit. This conception of the world will never become popu- 
lar: it goes too directly in the teeth of our immediate impres- 



394 THE MODERN WORLD 

sions. But for the intellectual few, it has ever had a profound 
attraction. 

In a world so conceived, the conception of process must 
undergo a corresponding change. The interaction theory had 
presented no difficulty to the earlier thinkers; but for the En- 
lightenment, with its sharp separation of soul from body and 
its more stringent delimitation of the different spheres of life, it 
had become a very difficult problem. In his treatment of it, 
Leibniz, like Spinoza, strikes out for himself. If the monads, 
the ultimate constituents of reality, are self-subsisting entities, 
they can be affected only by their own states, and they cannot 
possibly be susceptible to outside influences. The monads have 
no windows of communication with a world outside them. They 
are not empty tablets to be filled in by some strange hand. 
Rather, all their movement originates from within ; their devel- 
opment can only be self-development. Since the fundamental 
faculty of the soul is its power to frame ideas, and so concentrate 
the manifold into a unity, it follows that all vital process is at 
bottom a presentation of ideas, the unfolding of a realm of 
thought; all progress, a progress in clearness and an emancipa- 
tion from primitive confusion. 

The doctrine of monads cannot thus transform our notions 
of reality without itself giving rise to a difficult and apparently 
insoluble problem. Each monad must live out its own life, 
educe all its content from itself, and be unaffected by any out- 
side influences. But, at the same time, the very meaning of life 
is that it should represent the world around us and become a 
mirror of the universe. How then can that which has a self- 
contained existence at the same time represent the world ? How 
can life as it is unfolded within us be the same as the life of the 
world about us ? How can my thought be attuned to the world ? 
This is a crucial point, but nowhere does Leibniz's logical imag- 
ination rise to a greater height of audacity and self-confidence. 
There is one way in which the inner life, while running its inde- 
pendent course, may yet correspond to the outside world. A 
higher Power, dominating soul and world alike, must so have 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 395 

arranged everything beforehand that each monad, in the process 
of its own development, produces an exact representation of 
that which transpires in the real world outside it. The clocks 
must have been so cleverly designed by the great Artificer that 
they always keep time with each other, though there is no physi- 
cal connection between them, nor are they regulated from out- 
side. Thus there would be an exact correspondence between 
our conception of the sun, for instance, and the actual sun. 
This dizzy hypothesis soon became part of Leibniz's definite 
teaching, and constitutes the much-discussed doctrine of a 
"pre-established harmony," which seems to him to give us the 
grandest and therefore the worthiest conception both of God 
and the universe. 

We, his successors, are more struck by the artificiality of the 
conception than by its grandeur. But, in several important 
respects, this doctrine has undoubtedly aided the expansion of 
the realm of thought. This is particularly true in regard to the 
idea of the soul. If the soul is to contain a world within itself, 
and develop a world out of itself, it must be more than mere 
consciousness: we must penetrate beyond, and recognize the 
existence of a subconscious life of the soul. We have only to 
observe ourselves more closely to see that there is such a life, 
and that the act of presentation and the becoming aware of the 
object presented are two very different processes. Our sensations 
very often arise from a summation of small impressions which, 
taken singly, altogether elude observation. But they must be 
there, or we could never become conscious of their total effect. 
For example, we should be unable to hear the soft murmur of 
the sea, because the small waves which give rise to it are not 
audible individually. Thus, what our consciousness registers is 
never more than a fraction of our total being and experience. 
The psychical life consists of innumerable presentations, end- 
lessly interwoven. It is no mere barren soil, but is full of tiny 
shoots just beginning to make their way upward. Consciousness 
is only the climax of a process which reaches down into unfath- 
omable depths. 



396 THE MODERN WORLD 

This discovery of the subconscious is Leibniz's chief support 
for his doctrine of the universal diffusion of psychical life. For 
it leads to a distinction of different stages in the process of inte- 
gration, different degrees of clearness in the form of presenta- 
tion, varying from haziest confusion to the most perfect distinct- 
ness. There is unbroken continuity of psychical life, and every 
p,art of it is subject to the same laws; but at the same time there 
is plenty of room for individual differences, and particularly for 
the attribution of a very special dignity to man. He alone has 
a self -consciousness, a principle of unity from the heights of 
which he can review all different isolated events and connect 
them together. This increased systematisation is naturally 
accompanied by the rise of a moral, as distinct from a merely 
physical, identity. We have the emergence of personality, 
responsibility, free action, a moral world. With personality, the 
indestructibility of the monads becomes an individual immor- 
tality. Man attains an individual significance, while still indis- 
solubly linked with the universe. He is closely bound to nature, 
while at the same time raised above her. Far as we are from 
being the centre of the whole, yet by virtue of our reason we can 
be as gods, imitating after our humble fashion the Architect of 
the universe. As free citizens we can advance the welfare of 
the whole. Man is "not a part, but a counterpart, of Godhead, 
a representative of the Universe, a citizen of the Kingdom of 
God." "In our selfhood there is a latent infinity, an impress 
or an image of the Omniscience and Omnipotence of God." 

The expansion of the soul till it becomes itself a world full of 
infinite life tells most powerfully against any limitation of our 
knowledge to mere sense-experience. Now at last it is possible 
to understand how the soul can possess something without hav- 
ing received it, and how, despite all differences of opinion, men 
can still obey certain common principles of thought and action. 
In each rational being there is a buried treasure of eternal and 
universal truths, and to bring these out into the full daylight of 
consciousness is the main task of philosophic science. Happi- 
ness, too, strikes deeper roots as the soul's life in its growth 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 397 

transcends the limits of consciousness. "He who is happy does 
not indeed experience his joy at every moment of the day, for 
sometimes he rests from thinking, and commonly, too, turns his 
attention to befitting occupations. It is enough that he can 
experience it as often as he wishes to think about it, and that in 
the intervals a joyousness which springs therefrom is visible in 
his actions and character." 

Whatever thus raises the level of humanity as a whole implies 
for Leibniz a corresponding elevation of the individual. For as 
every single thing has its own distinguishing characteristic, so 
the particular human being is by no means merely a sample of 
his species. It is true that we all reflect the same universe and 
reflect it according to the same laws; but each one of us reflects 
it in his own peculiar fashion, or to give this the more modern 
turn which we find in Leibniz — referring to the doctrine of per- 
spective — each one looks at the universe from his own particular 
point of view. At the same time, we are circled round by an all- 
embracing truth. It is Leibniz who introduces the mediaeval 
term "individuality" (individualitas) into our modern world. 
He is the originator of the saying that the individual encloses 
the infinite within itself (I' 'individual-tie enveloppe Vinjini). 

Individuality, then, receives at Leibniz's hands a richer and 
a profounder significance. But this added significance is 
not something won once and for all. The winning of it is a 
task which is always confronting us and requires incessant 
renewal of effort. The depths of the individual nature must 
first be reached and wakened from their slumber into active life : 
since the task is endless, it can only be achieved by endless prog- 
ress. This progress presents itself to Leibniz, as his doctrine of 
continuity would lead us to expect, in the guise of a slow but un- 
interrupted process. There are no gaps, no skipping, no back- 
sliding. What seems to be a sudden revolution was really being 
prepared long beforehand. When we might seem to be checked 
or driven back, we are really only concentrating our energies for a 
further advance. Moreover, nothing being radically evil, there is 
no need for a complete revolution : the moral life consists in gradu- 



398 THE MODERN WORLD 

al improvement and a slow ripening to maturity (se perfectionner). 
Self-development is taken to be merely the unfolding of a nature 
already existent; it is an ordered progress, not a conversion. 
And as with the individual, so it is with history as a whole. For 
the first time we are presented with a clearly developed philos- 
ophy of history, that romance of humanity, as Leibniz terms it. 
The present enables us to understand the past because at bot- 
tom the same thing happens everywhere (c'est tout comme ici); 
but as the degree of its development is different in different 
periods, these periods naturally present very different charac- 
teristics. All periods, however, are bound together in unbroken 
sequence; they are all parts of the same structure. The present 
has its own safe niche in between the past and the future. "It 
is weighted with the past and pregnant with the future." The 
possibilities of the immediate present are confined within very 
narrow limits. The goal cannot be swiftly won by stormy and 
aggressive methods. But however small our share in the work 
of the centuries, it is yet an indispensable item of the whole 
structure, and nothing of it is wasted. Leibniz more than any 
one else has shown the inner fitness and historical necessity of 
the conception of perpetual progress and firm faith in a more 
ideal future, items of supreme importance in the spiritual inven- 
tory of our modern world. The opposition of reason and his- 
tory, so familiar to the Enlightenment, gives way before the 
discovery of reason in history, and a new path is opened up for 
developments of far-reaching importance. 

In the world of action this conception of progress finds ex- 
pression in a strenuous industry. The seething ferment of the 
Renaissance is clarified and calmed, but its energy is unim- 
paired. Even the form of knowledge, which gives to the whole 
psychical life its peculiar stamp, changes its character; it is no 
longer either a wrestling with the universe, as in the Renais- 
sance, or a calm intuition as with Spinoza. It is rather an 
unwearied effort to secure clearness in every department and 
detail, a dissecting and laying bare of all traditional ideas, an 
endeavour to find a sufficient reason for what men ordinarily 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 399 

accept as given, an illuminating analysis even of ultimate 
axioms; in all these respects it marks a vast extension of the 
field of thought. And as the consciousness of life deepens, its 
activities become more strenuous. Not only does thought 
prove a more effective stimulus to outwardly directed activity: 
it becomes more and more a purposive activity in itself. Leibniz 
is forever cogitating and brooding over possible improvements, 
through better knowledge, both in the inner and outer conditions 
of man's lot. He would fain devise new methods for the im- 
provement of our powers of thought, inference and memory; 
he would like, too, to create a universal language; but he still 
has time to spare for devising improvements in domestic uten- 
sils, mail-coaches, and so forth. Nothing is too big for him and 
nothing too small. Everywhere he finds incitement to new 
ideas and fresh proposals. The utilitarian bent of the Enlight- 
enment is nowhere more clearly revealed than in his personality 
and work. 

This restless industry may seem at first sight to compare 
unfavourably with the calm greatness of Spinoza's endeavour 
after the One and the Eternal. But Leibniz in no wise wastes 
himself on mere multiplicity and movement, however important 
they seem to him; he would have them firmly rooted in a Unity 
that is eternal. Only by thus grounding the finite in the infinite 
can he justify his own peculiar doctrine of a thoroughly coherent 
world-system, of the homogeneity of all existence, of the corre- 
spondence between soul and universe. There is even an approx- 
imation — more particularly apparent in his German writings— 
to the inwardness of mysticism with its conviction of the imme- 
diate presence of God within our nature. It is in such a mood 
that he must have written: " God is at once the easiest and the 
hardest to know: the first and the easiest where the path is 
bright, the last and the hardest where the path is dark." 

It is, then, a gross injustice to attribute Leibniz's support of 
religion to a desire for ecclesiastical favour. The real truth is 
that all his confidence in the human reason rests upon his belief 
that it is grounded in a divine reason; otherwise we cannot 



4 oo THE MODERN WORLD 

hope to reach those eternal truths which alone give value to our 
life and endeavour. The whole earth "cannot minister to our 
full perfection unless it gives us the opportunity to discover 
eternal and universal truths which must be valid in all worlds, 
at all periods, and even for God Himself from whom they eter- 
nally proceed." It is this conviction which keeps him, despite 
the natural mobility of his mind, from a destructive doctrine of 
relativity. While he allows each individual to view the world 
from his own standpoint, yet the Absolute and Divine view is 
ever for him the ultimate and infallible criterion. 

(cc.) Reconciliation of Religion and Philosophy. — If it is so 
necessary for thought in its own interest to base itself upon God, 
we can scarcely be surprised that Leibniz should also seek to 
bring his philosophy into touch with Christianity: in this way 
he might reasonably hope both to give an additional support to 
philosophic science, and to increase the influence of the estab- 
lished religion which already, as an historic fact, had strong 
claims on his regard. For in religion, as in life generally, clear 
knowledge seemed to him the goal of all thought. The love of 
God, which is the essence of religion, can be neither genuine 
nor enlightened unless it rests upon the knowledge of God. "It 
is impossible to love God without knowing His perfections." 
Only through such knowledge can religion become a conviction 
and a sentiment that can dominate the whole man. Belief with- 
out insight is but idle repetition and acceptance at second-hand. 
On the other hand, an emotional religious life unguided by 
reason easily tends to confusion and exaggeration. Knowledge 
is the only way of winning for religion the allegiance of the 
whole soul. It does not exclude other spiritual activities; in 
particular, it does not place itself in opposition to feeling; but 
it is the completion of the whole life. It was this temper that 
enabled Leibniz and the older German rationalism, which took 
him as its model, to feel thoroughly at one with Christianity, 
holding it to be the purest and most enlightened of all religions, 
the religion of the spirit. Through Christ, he maintains, the 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 401 

religion of the wise became the religion of the people; natural 
religion was ennobled through a new sense of obligation; the 
Godhead became not merely the object of our fear and vener- 
ation, but also of our love and heartfelt allegiance. 

From this starting-point the reconciliation of Christian faith 
and philosophic insight did not seem to Leibniz overwhelmingly 
difficult. There was much in his philosophy which was akin 
to Christianity: the grounding of the world within a unity that 
transcends it, the identification of reality with the soul's experi- 
ence, the central position assigned to man, the due recognition 
of moral values. All this needed only to be expressed in the 
more vivid language of history to be in complete agreement with 
the Christianity of Leibniz's day. Still it was all rather a theory 
of moral and spiritual values than a power to renovate and 
reform the soul. There are two points in particular from the 
establishment of which Leibniz hoped to effect a complete 
reconciliation between philosophical teaching and religious con- 
viction: the freedom of the will as the fundamental condition 
of a moral order, and the reasonableness of reality as the 
expression and proof of a divine Providence. 

The treatment of the problem of will is a striking illustration 
of the extent to which a philosopher can deceive himself as to 
the nature of his own teaching. Leibniz is keenly opposed to 
determinism. He wants to demonstrate — and thinks he has 
demonstrated — the truth of freedom. But in reality he leaves 
no room whatsoever for freedom: he transforms the whole 
psychical life into a mechanism of the intellect. For when he 
proves that all activity is self-determined, and that, so far from 
following uniform laws, it reflects even in detail the peculiarities 
of the individual; when, moreover, he maintains that the dis- 
tinguishing characteristic of man is his capacity to act as his 
rationally determined psychical experience dictates — then we 
cannot but feel that, though determinism may lose something of 
its bluntness, yet no victory has been won for freedom. 

Again the doctrine of the best of all possible worlds, however 
stimulating and suggestive, is significant rather as betokening 



4 o2 THE MODERN WORLD 

the heightened vitality of the age than as a contribution to phil- 
osophy. It could only convince where there was already con- 
viction. In his estimate of the existing order Leibniz already 
reveals his optimistic temper. He makes no attempt to deny 
that the world contains much imperfection, evil and pain; and 
that ills, metaphysical, moral and physical, are all too prevalent. 
But these ills are not so great as they seem to the peevish and 
embittered souls who scent evil everywhere and put poisonous 
interpretations upon even the noblest actions. Generally speak- 
ing, the good outweighs the ill, just as there are more dwelling- 
houses than prisons. The fact is that both in virtue and vice 
a certain mean is the rule. Saints are exceptional, but so are 
rogues. Taken as a whole, the bad does not constitute a king- 
dom of its own, but plays a merely subordinate role in the 
world's development. But even when confined within these 
limits, it is still a serious objection to a doctrine which makes the 
world rest upon an Absolute Reason. It was necessary to go 
further and show that the world with all its evil was better than 
a world would be without any evil. Such a proof is actually 
undertaken in the Theodicy, Leibniz's most considerable work, 
which originated in his conversations with the gifted Queen, 
Sophie Charlotte. 

If the question is to be rightly answered, it is essential that it 
should be rightly put. It must be put from the point of view 
not of the part but of the whole — and even the whole human 
race is only a part of the universe. Perhaps this shifting of the 
centre of gravity may transform philosophy as it did astronomy 
which, since learning from Copernicus "to place the eye in the 
sun," has brought our planetary system out of a state of chaotic 
confusion into one of complete orderliness. The world, as the 
creation of the All-powerful and All-good Spirit, must be the 
best of all possible worlds. Leibniz has sought to make this 
statement credible rather by refuting objections than by bring- 
ing direct evidence in support of it. He endeavours to find a 
standard of value which shall transcend all particular qualities 
taken individually, and he finds it in the idea of perfection, the 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 403 

perfection, that is, of active being, of vital force; regarded in 
this way, the world is the best possible because it is the system 
in which life is most fully developed. We see this in nature; 
everywhere she employs the simplest means and takes the 
shortest paths, while the rules that she obeys are adjusted to 
each other in the most economical way. We see it again in 
the spiritual life of man, with its challenge to personal decision 
and unwearying co-operation in the process of the world's 
development. If the goodness of the world be contested on the 
ground that every life has its troubles, the natural reply is that 
we are not concerned with individuals but with the whole. 
That which is best on the whole is not best in every detail. As 
on a draught-board the individual pieces can only move in a 
way that suits the whole plan, so, in real life, the individual 
must be subordinate to the whole. If the question is not so 
much what is possible in itself (le possible) as what is possible in 
conjunction with other possibilities (le compossible), it may very 
likely be true that a union of inferior units is more productive 
than where the units are of higher value. "A mean thing joined 
to another mean thing can often bring about a better result than 
can be accomplished by the union of two other things, each of 
which is in itself nobler than either of the former. Here lies the 
secret of election by grace, and the problem is solved." Evil 
itself can find a place in Leibniz's system, thanks to his mathe- 
matical and quantitative way of reasoning. From evil a greater 
good may very probably emerge, if not for the individual him- 
self, at least for others, and in this way the total sum of good 
may be increased. Was the greatness of the Roman state pos- 
sible apart from the horrors occasioned by the fall of the king- 
ship ? If, in forming our judgments, we are not guided by imme- 
diate impressions, but carefully trace the consequences and 
connections of events, the reasonableness of the whole will 
assuredly be established. There is so much reason in what we 
do see that we can take comfort and apply to the universe 
Socrates's remark about Heraclitus: "What I understand 
pleases me; I believe that the rest would please me just as well 



404 THE MODERN WORLD 

if I could understand it." By the power of thought man can 
share the life of the universe in all its richness, and in so doing, 
forget all the afflictions of his particular lot. The true knowledge 
lifts us to a height whence we "can see things beneath our feet 
as though we were looking from the stars." We must also 
remember the incessant progress of the world's development, 
and the fact that the soul belongs to an eternal order. "If we 
add to this that the soul does not perish, nay, more, that each 
perfection is bound to persist and bear fruit, then for the first 
time we can rightly see how the true bliss, springing from wisdom 
and virtue, is overwhelmingly and immeasurably superior to all 
that the heart of man can conceive." 

Objections to this way of thought are not far to seek. Leib- 
niz suggests possibilities, and, in so far as they do not admit of 
being convincingly disproved, regards them as certainties. 
Their realisation is a matter of faith rather than evidence. But 
the faith is itself the expression of a keen and buoyant vitality, 
and it is in the light of this sentiment that we must interpret 
the doctrine of the best of all possible worlds. 

Leibniz is important for his manifold suggestiveness, and still 
more important through his insistence on certain main princi- 
ples which only needed liberation from their scholastic setting 
to become the confession of faith of our classical literature, and, 
more generally, the guide of our modern life. But the detail of 
his system cannot fail to excite opposition; it leads, in fact to 
other goals than those which he himself contemplated. His own 
consciousness is absorbed by the problem of establishing a right 
relation between nature and spirit, the physical and the moral 
world. In all that concerns details, nature must supply her own 
principle of explanation, but viewed as a whole her basis is 
spiritual and she must serve spiritual ends. In the course of 
working out this conception, however, Leibniz achieves the 
very opposite result to that which he intended. Concepts proper 
to the natural order intrude into the spiritual life, and subjugate 
that which they were meant to serve. All being centres in the 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 405 

life of the soul, but this life is transformed into a mere fabric of 
presentations, as the familiar analogy of the timepiece suffi- 
ciently shows. The quantitative form of treatment proper to 
the study of nature is relentlessly extended to that of mind. 
Even the distinctions between good and evil, true and false, are 
turned into mere differences of degree, so that the new meta- 
physics threatens to degenerate into a mere extension of physics; 
while, through insistence on the increment of force or of vitality 
as the supreme test, the moral gives place to a dynamical form 
of valuation. The worst contradiction of all, however, is that 
while Leibniz insisted most emphatically on the self-immediacy 
of the psychical life, he could do no better than depict it as 
mere cognitive reflection of a world outside it. Surely this is to 
destroy the conception of inwardness, or at least to reduce it to an 
empty futility. 

So, again, intellectualism overshoots the mark and we are 
driven to find another solution. This is just what the later 
developments in Germany have attempted, thereby giving full 
effect to what was really fruitful in Leibniz. His attempt to 
blend old with new, which, when followed up, leads to incessant 
contradictions, is yet in itself significant and fruitful as contrib- 
uting to a larger and steadier outlook. Any one who places 
a value on historical continuity will count it a great matter 
that through Leibniz's unwearied efforts the old order was 
able to pass quietly into a new, and spiritual life in Germany 
was thereby preserved from all abrupt changes, whether revo- 
lutionary or reactionary. We may not agree with all Leibniz's 
doctrines, but this does not affect our indebtedness to him as a 
thinker. 

(c) Enlightenment: Period 0} Decline. A.Smith 

The leaders of seventeenth-century thought had already out- 
lined the main features of the Enlightenment; but it remained 
for those of the eighteenth to work them out in detail and apply 
them over the whole of social life. The past must no longer 



4 o6 THE MODERN WORLD 

burden the present with its mere authority: it must show its 
credentials, and all tradition opposed to the revivifying, reju- 
venating spirit of the present must be set aside. A clarifying, 
emancipating movement invades all departments alike; through- 
out, the supernatural and transcendental view yields place to 
one that is natural and immanental. This is true alike in re- 
ligion and ethics, in politics and economics, in the philosophy of 
history and in aesthetics. Innumerable slumbering forces are 
discovered and wakened from sleep, and with the heightened 
vitality comes a proud consciousness of power, a glad self-confi- 
dence. The contradictions of the early stage, though now for 
the first time fully realised, are yet powerless to discourage. 
They rather act as a spur urging men to put forth their utmost 
energy and bring in a better future. Speaking generally, cos- 
mological problems yield place to those which concern the con- 
dition and work of man; metaphysics gives way to psychology. 
The Age of Reason can be ushered in only through the liberation 
and development of the individual. We are bound to admit 
that this view makes our whole existence richer, fresher, more 
alive. But at the same time the mere individual often claims for 
himself what can really belong only to spiritual life as a whole, 
and thereby lowers and impoverishes his own condition. Men's 
minds are dominated by the idea of a reason unfettered by 
history, but this idea is itself the product of historical develop- 
ment and forms a necessary transition from a state of bondage 
to one of freedom. We can transcend this eighteenth century 
only in the atmosphere of freedom which it created for us. 

The English are the leaders in the Enlightenment of the 
eighteenth century. In France, the doctrines of Descartes, or 
such of them as had really proved influential, had soon become 
so overlaid with scholasticism that English influence was neces- 
sary to enlist the general feeling of the nation in support of the 
new movement. In England, owing to the exciting political and 
religious struggles of the seventeenth century, men's minds were 
much more alert, and with the accession of the Prince of Orange 
to the throne, the Enlightenment attained its greatest breadth 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 407 

and freedom. So Berkeley could truly say: "Thinking is the 
great desideration of the present age." All questions of human 
interest were eagerly discussed, the dialogue form being espe- 
cially favoured, now as a polemical weapon, and again as a 
means of presenting philosophical truths in a popular way. 
Through the medium of the periodical a new literature sprang 
up. The growing significance of the individual and his relations 
with other individuals found expression in the modern novel, 
which also, for the first time, contributed a realistic picture of 
social relationships. Everywhere there was a vigorous attempt 
to go back to the psychical bases of our social life, a praiseworthy 
and industrious effort to secure a reasoned view of life and 
improvement of social conditions; and all this involved an ever- 
increasing dependence upon the immediate environment. This 
social culture, however, was of an unmistakably bourgeois and 
simple character, in direct contrast to the pomp and glitter of 
Louis XIV. 's court. 

The transforming power of this movement is equally apparent 
in the spheres of morality and religion. All its teachers agree 
in rejecting mere authority, and in building upon a foundation 
of personal knowledge. They agree, too, in opposing all super- 
natural intervention : the ends we aim at must be determined 
by our own nature and our relationship to the environment. 
All inquiry begins and ends with the individual. Ethics is based 
not on theology or metaphysics, but on psychology. It is the 
task of science to lay bare, by means of a penetrating analysis, 
those fundamental sentiments which, when intensified, give rise 
to moral relationships. Most of these teachers consider that 
morality consists in working for others; true virtue is to work 
with heart and hand for the welfare of society. Again, most of 
them agree in transferring the motives of action from the next 
world to this. We are not to be influenced by any prospect of 
divine punishment or reward for our actions, but the reward is 
to lie in the value of the action itself and in the feeling of self- 
satisfaction which it engenders. This feeling is further height- 
ened by the self-respect natural to a free man who seeks within 



4 o8 THE MODERN WORLD 

himself his centre of gravity and does not recognize any external 
authority. The most complete exponent of this type of thought 
is Shaftesbury (1671-1713). He represents man as a being en- 
dowed with a moral sense which may be developed, through 
training, into moral discernment. Virtue consists in a right 
adjustment of the selfish and the social impulses; the latter 
must be strong; the former not too strong, and well-subor- 
dinated to the social impulse. Harmony is here the supreme 
end ; or, to put it more generally, the good is also the beautiful. 
This is why it is pleasant for its own sake and needs no other 
reward than the joy which abides within it. Virtue and happi- 
ness are inseparably united. Thus the self-sufficiency of morality 
and its value as an end in itself have their ground in the very 
nature of moral experience — a clear point of connection with 
Greek Ethics, and a distinct advance upon the general trend of 
the Enlightenment. It is not only in England that these doc- 
trines have made themselves felt. They have also exercised 
a lasting influence over eminent German poets and thinkers. 

In the sphere of religion, we find the individual placing the 
utmost confidence in his reason and mainly occupied with a 
searching criticism of received beliefs. First there is an on- 
slaught against all that is unreasonable, and then against all 
that is supernatural. In the end, the only content left to religion 
is morality: to be virtuous becomes the one true way of wor- 
shipping God. To rest satisfied with this conclusion required 
a strong optimism — and this, indeed, we find. It was generally 
assumed that the benevolent impulses were strong by nature and 
could easily gain the upper hand over the selfish impulses. Hap- 
piness was far more widely diffused than unhappiness: "Take 
the whole earth at an average, for one man who suffers pain or 
misery, you will find twenty in prosperity and joy, or, at least, in 
tolerable circumstances" (A. Smith). The same writer tells us 
that to be healthy, out of debt, and of a good conscience is all 
that is essential to happiness; and this condition, he opines, 
despite all the suffering in the world, is man's natural and 
ordinary lot, the condition of the majority of mankind. 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 409 

Such a platitude is sufficient to show how many questions of 
morality and religion were left untouched by the English En- 
lightenment. And yet we must not depreciate it. It gave the 
first impulse toward grounding morality and religion in man's 
own nature. It failed to sound any great depths because it 
considered man as merely a part of a given world, not as a mem- 
ber of a spiritual order embracing and transcending the world. 
This step was reserved for German Idealism, but German Ideal- 
ism could scarcely have taken it had not England cleared the 
way. 

The most important work of the English Enlightenment is 
Adam Smith's (1 723-1 790) treatise on economics. This, in its 
own particular department, gives classical expression to the 
ideas of the Enlightenment, and at the same time develops a 
general theory of life and action which, for the first time, allows 
to economical considerations the dominant and central place in 
the world's work. All human existence is regarded from the 
economical stand-point of material subsistence, just as at other 
times it has been viewed from the stand-point of religion, of art or 
of science. This new attitude is so rich in consequences, and so 
influential even to-day, that it requires a more detailed presen- 
tation. 

It is in Smith that the economical doctrines of the Enlight- 
enment receive their clearest expression and are most systemati- 
cally worked out. The older doctrine, as it had been handed 
down from antiquity through the Middle Ages and right on 
into modern times, did not recognise the independence of the 
economical point of view, but made it directly subservient to 
ethical ends. Nor did it consider economics as an organic 
whole, but merely as a collection of isolated facts. Moreover, it 
had no idea of a national economy, i. e., of any connection be- 
tween economical and national relations. Aristotle, in particular, 
set forth the presuppositions of this doctrine with great distinct- 
ness. They are presuppositions which modern life has shattered 
and destroyed. Now that material goods have of themselves 
the power to awaken dormant energies and stimulate activity, 



4 io THE MODERN WORLD 

they cease to be the mere means of existence and become a fac- 
tor of prime importance for life. The care spent on them is 
ennobled by the fact that economics is looked upon as a matter 
of national policy. The Renaissance had already paved the 
way for a revolution in this direction. It had produced great 
results, especially in the France of the seventeenth century, and 
was influencing the thoughts of men more and more. But no 
work had yet been done along these lines which could compare 
in any way with that done by Adam Smith; he was the first to 
treat the problem in a universal manner, and to give to modern 
conviction on the subject a thoroughly befitting expression. 

Smith begins with the fact of division of labour. This is no 
contrivance of man's wisdom, but arises out of his natural bent 
toward barter, and its tendency is to expand and develop indefi- 
nitely. It makes it possible to do everything more skilfully; it 
saves considerable time and incites men to the discovery of ma- 
chines; in all these ways it immeasurably advances economic 
productiveness, and therewith the welfare and well-being of 
'mankind. It is the main factor in the development of society 
from a savage to a civilised state. Division of labour, however, 
does not mean any dissociation of the individual members of 
society, but rather a tightening of the bonds which hold them 
together. In fact, it is only possible for an individual to persist 
and prosper in so far as he contributes to his fellows something 
worth having. He must make some solid contribution of a use- 
ful kind, and this more than anything else drives him to put 
forth all his powers and apply them in a purposive manner. As 
to what is purposive, he whose welfare — nay, life — is at stake, is 
surely a better judge than any stranger. On the whole, the 
relation of supply and demand will regulate everything in the 
best possible way. Where a need arises, there will be an imme- 
diate flow of energy to the required spot; where, on the other 
hand, there is a surplus, there will be an equally speedy with- 
drawal of energy. The freer the movement, the swifter will be 
the process. There is no stronger motive to work than compe- 
tition. There is no need of any oversight on the part of State 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 411 

or Corporations, since customers themselves are the most effect- 
ive instrument of control. In fact, all intervention of the State, 
whether it be in the way of helping or hindering economic proc- 
esses, is, under normal conditions, an evil. For all artificial 
guidance cannot but divert the currents of activity from their 
natural channels, retard their flow and lessen their productiveness. 
Monopolies and privileges may further the well-being of par- 
ticular classes, but they are harmful to the prosperity of a nation 
taken as a whole. The natural condition of such prosperity is 
"the obvious and simple system of natural liberty" allowing 
each man to "pursue his own interest his own way." More- 
over, it is the idea of the independence of the free individual 
which gives soul to life and action. To take the conflict on one's 
own shoulders and look dangers straight in the face has far 
more spice and charm than a safe bed of another's providing. 
But conflict demands of necessity the right of perfectly free 
movement on the part of individuals. They must be free to 
choose their work as they will, and to change one trade, or place 
of business, for another. In this process there is certain to be 
much friction and misunderstanding, but the process itself con- 
tains all the remedies for the evil and in the end offers every man 
a measure of happiness. 

But that each individual should exert himself to the utmost 
in his own interest is the best way of insuring the prosperity of 
the community. For since the individual can only advance 
himself through the excellence of that which he produces, and 
competition involves the spurring on of one by another, the con- 
dition of the community is bound to make continual progress, 
and all the more certainly because it is the unchanging natural 
instincts which support the whole structure. So a reasonable 
result can be reached without any conscious seeking for it on the 
part of the actors themselves, an idea familiar to us as taken up 
and developed by Darwin. Still, division and conflict would be 
unavoidable, were it not for a solidarity of interests between the 
various classes and callings, which insures that the gain of the 
individual shall in the end conduce to the advantage of his fel- 



412 THE MODERN WORLD 

lows. That this is so is with Smith an adamantine conviction. 
He never for a moment doubts that the gain of one man is, di- 
rectly or indirectly, sooner or later, the gain of his fellow-men. 
In particular he singles out the industrial progress of Great 
Britain and attributes to it the much improved condition of the 
working-classes. The reality of this mutual aid is at once obvi- 
ous, if only we cease to fasten our attention on individual occur- 
rences and direct it rather to the system as a whole. 

But what is true within the State can also be applied to the 
wider field of international relations, and here it constitutes a 
strong argument for an unrestricted free trade. Perfect freedom 
in the exchange of wares is to the interest alike of buyer and 
seller; in "natural" trading, the one does not gain at the ex- 
pense of the other, but both are gainers. The one realises his 
goods at a profit; the other is given a chance of using his to 
greater advantage. This is particularly true in the exchange of 
manufactured articles for raw products. Thus trade, from 
being a fertile source of discord and animosity, becomes a bond 
of union and friendship. The prosperity of our neighbour prof- 
its rather than harms us. Industrial solidarity expands into the 
solidarity of nations. We have a picture of peaceful rivalry and 
perpetual progress. 

And these considerations apply to spiritual no less than to 
material labour, so that in the end it is the rivalry of individuals 
which supports the whole fabric of civilisation. Lofty ideals 
seldom draw us by their own charm. Rivalry and competition 
are essential to progress. This is particularly true of religion, 
science and education. They have the surest footing and the 
best chance of progress when they are left entirely to themselves, 
when their representatives have to fight hard and do solid work 
in order to win recognition and insure a continued existence. 
All conferring of privileges, everything that gives immunity from 
care, makes for laziness and deterioration. So it is easy to 
understand how religions are more powerful at the commence- 
ment than in their later phases, how private schools show better 
results than schools under public management, and so on. 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 413 

Everywhere the vital interests of individuals are the mainspring 
of action and the sure guarantee of progress. The doctrine of 
economics expands into a general scheme of life. 

The merits and limitations of this view have been much dis- 
cussed during recent decades. To us the doctrine is chiefly 
interesting as expressing an aspect of the life-philosophy of the 
Enlightenment. Its method at once proclaims the closeness of 
the connection. The writer seeks, by means of a penetrating 
analysis, to resolve the economic process into its simplest ele- 
ments, to bring these together, and thus from the elements 
derive a picture of reality as a whole. This certainly brings 
clearness and lucidity into a domain which otherwise would 
be a scene of dire confusion : Adam Smith's theoretical eluci- 
dation of the economic life constitutes one of the most brill- 
iant triumphs of the Enlightenment. The content of his doctrine 
also reveals the spirit of this period. Everywhere it is nature 
which is called upon : commerce is reduced to the play of natural 
instincts; all human initiative is expressly ruled out. It is quite 
in accordance with the spirit of the Enlightenment to make 
prosperity depend entirely upon the free movement of natural 
forces. Moreover, the optimism which permeates this system is 
in complete accord with the Enlightenment. The system stands 
or falls with the conviction that the individual, once set free 
from artificial restraints, has sufficient strength and insight to 
win for himself a suitable place in life; and also with this other 
conviction, that those who buy are both willing and able to 
choose the really superior article. For if the inferior were to 
command approval, a blow would be struck at the very roots of 
progress. 

Both Smith, however, and the English Enlightenment with 
him, tacitly presuppose the particular conditions of their time 
and place. Their system professes to be an outcome of mere 
theory and therefore universally valid : but in truth it is largely 
the product of the peculiar circumstances of England at that 
particular period. The theory is constantly accompanied and 
supplemented by a mental picture, the picture of a thriving 



4 i4 THE MODERN WORLD 

nation making sure progress toward increased power and more 
widely diffused prosperity, and just in the act of substituting 
machine-work for hand-labour. Smith's great work appeared 
in 1777. In 1767, Hargraves invented the spinning-jenny. In 
1769, Watt invented the steam-engine, and in the same year Ark- 
wright invented the roller spinning-frame driven by water- 
power. It is precisely these years which mark the commence- 
ment of that revolution in modern labour which later was to 
change the whole face of human existence. But all these vast 
complications lay yet undreamt of in the far distance; and since 
Smith presupposes simpler conditions, a milder type of economic 
struggle, and a more leisurely process of barter, it is quite pos- 
sible for him to expect nothing but good from the free movement 
of natural forces. As yet there was no rift between capital and 
labour. The rending shocks and displacements occasioned by 
the ever-increasing rate of traffic were still quite beyond his vision. 
He has no fear, for instance, of any dangers that might arise 
from the importation of foreign corn: the difficulties of trans- 
port are so great that even in times of scarcity he thinks very 
little would be imported. In all these respects his system shows 
clearly its close connection with a specific historical setting. It 
shares the general error of the Enlightenment, which is to mis- 
take a demand of one particular age for a need of all time. 

But it is as a general policy and philosophy of life that Smith's 
system is least satisfactory. It leaves out of count all inward 
joy in work, all inward growth through the progress of work. 
Life is looked at from the outward point of view, and is gauged 
by its external progress, its material acquisitions and gains. 
Whatever may be the extent to which free movement and the 
full development of individual power may conduce to the 
qualities of independence and manliness, yet in its more inward 
aspects the level of life is lowered in every single department — 
religion, science and education. There is a vast gulf between 
true inward freedom and that freedom of external movement 
whose greedy rivalries and harsh competitions rivet a man's 
attention on his environment, keep him from rising above its 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 415 

level, and make him the docile slave of the public interest. Thus 
Adam Smith's work, philosophically considered, has very im- 
portant limitations. But, as a typical way of viewing the prob- 
lem of human life, it has a lasting significance. 

The French Enlightenment, in all its main features, follows 
in the steps of the English; it works on borrowed capital. But 
it gives to the borrowed material a new and original shape: in 
the first place, it ignores historical conditions, whereas these 
had a marked influence over English thought, now tempering its 
exuberance, now supplementing its deficiencies. In the second 
place, it works out its principles more abstractly and is more 
rigidly consistent in its deductions. At the same time, the style 
of presentation is fresher, wittier, more piquant; nowhere else 
is the peculiar versatility and impressionableness of the French 
quite so brilliantly displayed. One and the same impulse per- 
vades every department of life, the desire, namely, to let every- 
thing explain itself according to its own nature. Political and 
historical occurrences are divested of all supernatural elements. 
It is human nature which is to give the key to all political devel- 
opments and diversities of constitution. A rational philosophy 
of history is built up deliberately in opposition to the traditional 
religious interpretation of human progress. At the same time 
literary work gains immensely in power of expression and ar- 
tistic elegance. It is to France that the Enlightenment of the 
eighteenth century owes its world-wide influence. But despite all 
its freshness, charm and grace, it became poorer and poorer in 
spiritual substance, and more and more definitely individual- 
istic. Though of great importance for its own day, it has con- 
tributed little of lasting worth to our common spiritual treasury. 
Our task in this book, therefore, allows us to touch on it but 
lightly. 

It is a period in which the Subject reaches a maximal degree 
of independence and practises the most outspoken criticism. 
All rigid distinctions are melted down; even the hardest, dryest 
material is stirred and freshened, but at the same time broken up. 



4 i6 THE MODERN WORLD 

In a personality like Diderot's the serious aspect of things seems 
to have entirely disappeared; existence, for him, is but a grace- 
ful pastime; a slave to each passing impression, he runs through 
one phase after another, and — a true epitome of his age — 
presses ever further in the path of negation. In the case of other 
thinkers, we find a desire for systematic unity stronger than in 
any one of the English school, and a more vigorous attempt to 
eliminate all hyperempirical elements. Condillac, for example, 
simplifies the empiricism of Locke by building up all psychical 
life from sense-impressions, and, in the course of carefully tracing 
the individual stages of this process, he proffers many fine 
observations and fruitful suggestions. — Helvetius is of coarser 
stuff: he will not allow that an original instinct of benevolence 
has anything to do with morality, but bases all action on the 
interest of the individual, rightly understood (Pint'eret Men 
entendu). Since we are nothing but what the environment 
makes us, the power of external influences becomes overwhelm- 
ing, and therefore, too, the power of education, so that the final 
conclusion is: "Education can do everything." New horizons 
dawn upon our view as the feelings and all the impulses that lead 
to action come to be derived from physical sensibility. — For 
cleverness, wit and argumentative ingenuity there is no one like 
Voltaire. Against all philosophical systems, nay, more, against 
any kind of learned discussion, he directs the most biting scepti- 
cism, and finds a special outlet for his wit in Leibniz's doctrine 
of the best of all possible worlds. He is still more violent in his 
denunciation of all dogmatic and authoritative religion, and also 
of superstition, which he regards as the worst foe of the human 
race. At the same time, his honest conviction drives him to 
reject atheism, but the religion he wants is a religion "with 
much morality in it and very little dogma"; and by "moral" he 
means that which conduces to the welfare of society as it hap- 
pens to be constituted for the time being. So, though he dis- 
tinctly recognises the value of morality in itself, yet his exposi- 
tion of it reveals a relativity which everywhere introduces change 
and flux. Voltaire's greatest enthusiasm is for toleration, from 



THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD 417 

which he expects the only peace that man can hope for. Taken 
all in all, the Enlightenment in France stirred and moved hu- 
manity to an incalculable extent, nor was its influence by any 
means exhausted in its own day. Only later did it begin to affect 
other nationalities, and in our own land it still exercises an im- 
mense power. 

Germany was the last to participate in the work of the En- 
lightenment. Here, more than anywhere else, the ground was 
cumbered with useless survivals, and Germany entered upon the 
task of removing them with much more gravity and seriousness 
than had been shown in France, and at the same time with a 
manifest desire to save and secure the good elements while sift- 
ing and weeding out the worthless. German life, therefore, has 
been spared any violent catastrophes. But with its greater 
sobriety, it is at the same time much tamer and more bourgeois. 
There is lacking, not only the easy versatility, but also, for the 
most part, the fine taste and the sparkling wit of the French. 
The leading spirit of the German Enlightenment is Christian 
Wolff (1679-1754), a man of great renown in his own day. His 
merit is that he systematically covered the whole ground along 
the lines prescribed by the Enlightenment and presented his 
results in a form intelligible to every one. He produces a kind 
of encyclopaedia of modern knowledge : with the most tenacious 
perseverance he develops the main ideas into their minutest 
ramifications, forms a well-organised system of concepts, and 
creates a German vocabulary for their expression. At the same 
time he defends his convictions right manfully against powerful 
opponents. Moreover, it is largely his influence which has 
brought the German universities from a mediaeval into a modern 
atmosphere of thought, and has thus paved the way for the im- 
portant position which they now hold in the spiritual life of 
Germany. But he can only be considered great from the stand- 
point of his own age and in close relation to it. When once we 
take him out of the context of his time, with its ideals of sobriety 
and clearness, we find his tasteless circumlocutions and self- 



418 THE MODERN WORLD 

conscious pedantry altogether intolerable. It was imperative 
that the German Enlightenment should free itself from such 
pedantic narrowness, and in the process, marked by the appear- 
ance of Lessing, it reached a particularly high level. Lessing's 
ideas are in the main those of Leibniz, but they have been clari- 
fied and rejuvenated, and bear throughout the impress of a strong 
personality full of youthful freshness and joy. At the same time 
the language in which they are expressed has been polished till it 
is clear as crystal, so that the ideas are far more intelligible and 
effective. Freed from musty pedantry, they have power to stir 
the whole being and help forward a life that is universal. And 
this power is the greater in that a strong sense of truth perme- 
ates Lessing's work, an attitude of inexorable opposition to all 
shams. Moreover, in several important points he develops in a 
very forcible way the ideas which he has taken over. The uni- 
versal nature of the individual is more clearly brought out, and 
his superiority to the social environment. The connection be- 
tween God and the world is depicted as more intimate and in- 
ward. But, above all, fresh light is thrown on the relationship 
of reason and history, and a way thus prepared for movements 
of great importance, more especially in the sphere of religion. 
According to Lessing, our ultimate convictions cannot possibly 
rest on an historical basis: "accidental truths of history can 
never be the proof of necessary truths of reason," "accidental," 
like "empirical," being used here in the sense of "actual." 
Thus Lessing is the most convinced opponent of all rigid ortho- 
doxy. But he goes far beyond the ordinary level of the Enlight- 
enment in his endeavour to discover a reason in all historical 
conditions, nay, more, to understand the whole process of his- 
tory as man's education in reason. This induces him to enter 
sympathetically into all the manifold forms of tradition, and 
never altogether to reject anything which opens up new prospects 
and new problems. It is along this path that the nineteenth 
century has reached its most striking results, and thus Lessing 
constitutes the most important link between the older and the 
newer way of thought. 

.5^ 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 419 



C. THE BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 
AND THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 

We have spoken of the Enlightenment as a leading factor in 
the great modern movement which aims at opening up the 
whole realm of reality and pouring its riches into the life of 
man. Its distinctive contribution was the ruthless dissection of 
first impressions, the clear distinction between mind and nature, 
the apprehension of the smallest elements as alive; in a word, 
the systematic reconstruction of the given, based on a thorough- 
going analysis and involving a fundamental transformation of 
primitive material. With the enrichment of thought went also 
an enrichment of life. Strenuous toil increased man's control 
over nature as over himself. The accurate understanding of 
nature was crowned by triumphs of technical achievement. In 
the world of politics and of economics, the free play given to the 
exercise of individual powers was at the same time a challenge 
to greater independence of action. And in the more general con- 
duct of life, the result of starting from the individual was to give 
an impetus toward greater freedom, freshness and activity — as 
is clearly shown in the spheres alike of religion, morality and 
education. 

In all these respects the Enlightenment has left an indelible 
record in the history of humanity. It is a stage which cannot 
possibly be omitted; he who wishes to get beyond it yet dare not 
ignore it. But its very strength betrays its one-sidedness and its 
weakness. The reluctance to synthesise, the inward separation 
of man from the universe, the exaggerated value attached to 
knowledge, the subtle worship of the minute with its consequent 
dangerous optimism, the limitation of utilitarian ideals — all this 
was bound to reveal itself sooner or later by that process through 
which the limitations of human ideals are usually revealed in the 
course of the world's development, the process, namely, of their 
own realisation. The very unfolding of a movement forces its 
inherent elements of negation and narrowness to become ex- 



420 THE MODERN WORLD 

plicit. In proportion as the great impulses which set it going 
become merged and lost in the mediocrity of ordinary life, the 
weaknesses are ever more and more exposed, till at last a revo- 
lution ensues and every one rejects and denies that which for- 
merly inspired and dominated all. It is only at a later period 
that a balance of judgment can reassert itself. The continuance 
of the dispute about the merits of the Enlightenment shows 
clearly that such a period has not yet arrived, and that despite all 
reactions and counter-movements, the Enlightenment is still a 
force to be reckoned with. 

I. REACTIONS AGAINST THE ENLIGHTENMENT IN THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

(a) Hume 

Hume (1711-1776) shows a way of escape from a serious in- 
consistency of the English Enlightenment. It professes to take 
its stand entirely on experience and thence derive not only all 
knowledge but also all rules for the guidance of life. But as a 
matter of fact it supplements experience by drawing largely 
upon man's spiritual capacity; only it so confuses the two 
sources that it becomes difficult to distinguish clearly between 
them, as when the theory of knowledge, for instance, treats the 
fundamental laws of thought — causality, in particular — as de- 
rived from things. In the practical direction we have a still more 
striking example: the free personality outgrows the limitations 
of experience, and in politics, ethics and religion, human nature 
becomes intellectualised and idealised as it has no right to be on 
the assumptions of the system. Even in the concept of nature 
itself there lurks an ambiguity, a contradiction. 

It is Hume who clearly penetrates this contradiction and with 
dogged energy works out the conception of a pure experience, 
at the same time giving his own very original and well-defined 
interpretation of life and reality. According to him, there can 
be no such thing as causality, in the sense of a real connection of 
events. For a connection, as the old Sceptics were shrewd 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 421 

enough to see, cannot possibly take place through the mediacy 
of things, but must emanate from ourselves. It really means 
nothing more than a customary sequence of our ideas in virtue 
of which similar situations lead us to expect a similar issue. 
Thus causality, from being a cosmic law, becomes merely a 
psychical phenomenon; it gives no information whatsoever as 
to the actual nature of things. Even the concept of "thing" 
can no longer keep its former value. Bodies, souls, things gen- 
erally, cannot be perceived, nor can they denote anything lying 
beyond the sphere of our perception. They are merely the prod- 
ucts and supports of our perception. The soul, for instance, is 
"nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, 
which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and 
are in a perpetual flux and movement." Our perceptions are 
not copies of a reality independent of them. The so-called 
degrees of reality are merely degrees of an indefinable force and 
liveliness with which perceptions strike upon the mind. Hence, 
in last resort, all our convictions are reduced to feelings. Mere 
argument can never give us any assurance of reality. All con- 
nections have their origin in some necessity of feeling, and are, 
therefore, matter of belief, a belief which naturally has nothing 
to do with religious belief or faith. Now feeling develops chiefly 
through custom and use, and the development is more properly 
an affair of the sensitive than of the reflective side of our nature. 
The process of perception is not regulated by some directing 
unity and is not the product of conscious purpose; it is a strictly 
necessary process, governed by simple laws of association. So 
everything metaphysical is ruthlessly expelled and empirical 
psychology becomes all in all. 

And equally in the other departments of life, reason loses her 
position of supremacy and the forces which sway us are shown 
to be thoroughly irrational. It is not reasonable deliberation, 
but feelings of pleasure and pain which impel us to action. The 
so-called victory of reason over feeling is nothing more than the 
victory of a tranquil feeling over a violent one. Reason cannot of 
her own strength either help or hinder ; she is only a slave of the 



422 THE MODERN WORLD 

feelings. Virtues are distinguished from vices not through any 
theorising reflection, but through the immediate satisfaction or 
dissatisfaction, pleasure or displeasure, which the contemplation 
of them calls forth. Thus morality becomes a question of taste. 
The treatment of religion also is entirely revolutionised. If the 
Enlightenment had been minded to base it upon knowledge, 
Hume seeks to root it in human emotion — in hope, and still 
more, in fear. Thus he becomes the subverter of English Deism. 

In this way the whole of our life is carried back on to a sense- 
basis which is firmly adhered to in the building up of social 
relations. Everything that might seem to claim an independent 
footing is either forced into agreement or else eliminated. Thus 
the whole aspect of life is changed, together with the problem 
which it presents. We see at once that existence becomes some- 
thing quite subjective and relative, that immediate impression 
is more important than thought, feeling than theory. At the 
same time, there is no longer any motive for optimism. There 
is nothing to hinder us from recognising to the full the irrational 
element in human action and procedure. The dark and painful 
side of life is powerless to move or disturb us, when once the 
relativity of things has been fully grasped. Hume's system is 
not incompatible with energetic action in the outside world; it 
allows of a vigorous conflict against error and vain imagining. 
But at the heart of it there is a deep passivity, amounting even 
to icy indifference. 

This system of thought gives us an original presentation of 
reality, worked out with admirable consistency. The Positiv- 
ism of the nineteenth century, with all its resources of natural 
science, technical achievement and social experience, did noth- 
ing more than develop the system a little further, without always 
preserving the extreme precision of Hume's ideas. It is no small 
merit to have thought out definitely and clearly such a pure and 
unadulterated empiricism. Whether there is anything final in 
the presentation, whether it does not rather itself reveal its own 
limitations, is another question. In any case, its most impor- 
tant result was the stimulus it gave to the thought of Kant. 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 423 

(b) Rousseau 

With Rousseau (1712-1778) there begins the full reaction of 
feeling against the intellectualism of the Enlightenment, a re- 
action which finds in him its most extreme form of expres- 
sion. For though Rousseau was no great philosopher, nor the 
originator of any deep-laid system, yet he was the inspirer 
of a new order of feeling, and initiated a movement of im- 
measurable import. The strength of his influence may be 
partly accounted for by an unsolved contradiction in his own 
nature. He is poet and thinker in one : as thinker he inclines 
to sober logic; as poet, to dreamy romanticism. He is con- 
spicuous for his power of abstraction and inference. Connected 
thought is as easy to him as child's play. His individual sen- 
tences are like pearls rolled together to form a chain, and the 
whole result appeals to us with the force of inexorable consist- 
ency. From this point of view his work appears to be merely 
a development of perfectly obvious premises. Everything is so 
simple, so illuminating, so convincing, that it seems quite im- 
possible to contradict it. But when we scrutinise the premises 
themselves more closely, we find a very different tendency at 
work. Here there is something immediate, intuitive, determined 
by feeling. A subjective influence is at work of a strongly excit- 
able, emotional kind, passing thence into things themselves and 
investing them with an inner life, with tone and colour, love and 
hate, feeling and passion. But so gentle is the transforming 
touch which makes of them something other, better and more 
spiritual than they are — so deftly is the magic garment of the 
artistic imagination thrown around them, that the poetry is 
never recognised as such. The new blends with the old to form 
an apparently complete unity, and, despite its daring originality, 
has all the convincing force of a purely logical deduction. It is 
as poet rather than thinker that Rousseau has exercised such 
compelling and dominating power. 

The form of presentation corresponds completely with this 
inward temper. Clear and simple as it is, it appears to be just 



424 THE MODERN WORLD 

the plainest possible expression of necessary fact. But at the 
same time it is eloquent through and through of a susceptible 
and dreamy nature. It voices persuasively all its moods and 
impulses, its glowing indignation and stormy passion no less 
than the tuneful vibrations of its tenderest feelings. It has, in 
particular, a marvellous power of giving expression to moods 
only half avowed, which halt poised between contradictory 
emotions. It lets us hear the overtones, and in all the stress and 
strain of active life fills us with a longing for better things, a 
desire for loneliness, a quiet melancholy. All this is not accom- 
plished without art, but the art is so skilfully concealed that it 
has the effect of perfect naturalness. 

When we pass to the content of his work, we find that Rous- 
seau for the first time discloses the radical spirit of the Enlight- 
enment, which had so long been concealed by an optimistic view 
of the relation between nature and society. From the very outset 
it had been the aim of the Enlightenment to find a way of life 
that was reasonable and conformable to nature, but it fancied 
that the goal was near and the way easy. The traditional civilisa- 
tion, with all its mistakes and errors, did not seem diametrically 
opposed to nature. Only let the husks of prejudice and super- 
stition be stripped off and surely there would appear forthwith 
a solid kernel of incontestable worth. To the men of the Enlight- 
enment it seemed perfectly possible, without any noise or fuss 
but simply by means of clear insight, honest endeavour and dili- 
gent work, to make reason everywhere supreme. The goal they 
set before them was not an entirely new order of life only to be 
obtained through painful upheaval, but an active shifting of 
existing conditions, a purifying and freshening of life as it is. 
Consequently, there is no unchaining of elemental passions, and 
society is not shaken to its foundations. The Enlightenment 
rather starts on the highest level of social life and thence pene- 
trates slowly but surely to the lower strata. By quiet progress 
everything seems to be levelled upward and the interests of all 
classes to be more and more identified. Even the negative move- 
ment assumes a moderate and beneficent character. Reform, 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 425 

not Revolution, is the watchword. The men whose youth be- 
longed to this period, as, for example, Goethe, never felt them- 
selves really at home in the political and social atmosphere of the 
later epoch. 

It is this later epoch which begins with Rousseau. With vivid 
distinctness he shows up the gulf which exists between the 
natural conditions demanded by reason and the actualities of 
our social environment. It is not merely that the latter is incom- 
plete and defective. The whole spirit of it is contrary to reason ; 
it is rotten to the core. Thus Rousseau's accusations are not 
directed against any particular faults and flaws, but rather 
against the whole structure of a civilisation which is partly tra- 
ditional, partly social. The ideal of simplicity, immediacy, truth 
to nature, which the English representatives of the Enlighten- 
ment had thought it possible to realise even in society, is now 
seen to be really hostile to society and engaged in a life-and- 
death struggle with it. The discerning toleration and good 
feeling of the earlier time are laid aside, and the sharp 
contrast of truth and semblance awakens the fiercest passion. 
No longer can one man stand sponsor for another, but each is 
summoned to co-operate, each must win happiness and truth 
for himself. 

This view entirely changes the value of society for the indi- 
vidual. So far the Enlightenment had seen in society nothing 
but good. The social condition seemed to be the natural out- 
growth of our rational nature and to be immeasurably helpful 
to the individual. Under the protection of law, freedom seemed 
to have a much better chance than could possibly be afforded 
it by the unbridled liberty of a state of nature. But now the 
other side of the picture is disclosed. Society, enslaving as 
it does the individual to his environment, is felt to be a seri- 
ous menace to the happy and harmonious development of his 
powers. 

Civilisation makes a man weak and insincere, and distracts 
his energies. Its sole criterion of worth is outward performance. 
Hence, through its influence, a man is alienated from his own 



426 THE MODERN WORLD 

true nature, diverted from his own individuality, and all his 
thought and reflection is made to depend on the judgment of 
others. To secure an outward effect it is unnecessary to go be- 
yond seeming: so hypocrisy continually gains ground and fal- 
sifies even the inmost nature of the soul. There is no room left 
for strong feeling and energetic willing, but every emotion is 
toned down to the dead level of social requirement; there is no 
chance for the development of an independent individuality; 
uniformity is imposed upon all. A man does not ask whether he 
himself is pleased with what he does, but only whether other 
people approve. "No one dares to be himself." "We must do 
what others do," is the ruling maxim of wisdom. "This is 
usual, that is not usual," is the ultimate ground of decision. 
Thus we are estranged from ourselves. Our desire is no longer 
focussed on what is near and simple, but on the distant and the 
complex, and it becomes faint and weak in proportion to the 
breadth of the area over which it is dissipated. We trouble our- 
selves about many things till "our individuality is only the small- 
est part of us. Every man makes himself, so to speak, commen- 
surate with the whole wide world and has all this vast area of 
sensibility to pain. Can we wonder that our afflictions multiply 
when we have so many vulnerable spots?" We look abroad, 
but our own home is strange to us and our nearest neighbours of 
no concern. "Many a philosopher loves the Tartars, that he 
may not have to love his neighbours." 

Conditions of this kind cannot produce strong action and 
manly character. They are, moreover, fatal to our happiness. 
Happiness for a man means not so much great enjoyment as little 
suffering. Now our suffering increases in proportion as the gulf 
widens between our wishes and our capacity. To make this gulf 
less wide, to set before ourselves goals that are attainable, is the 
path of our true wisdom. But social life takes the exactly oppo- 
site course: it entangles us in the most distant concerns, excites 
impossible desires, leaves us wholly at the mercy of outside 
things. 

Life consequently becomes wretched, devoid of sincerity and 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 427 

independence. The weeds of conventionalism choke everything 
that is genuinely natural and human. And when at last the 
desire arises to return to the simplicity and innocence of nature, 
to live a stronger and a happier life, it finds itself in utter incom- 
patibility with the existing social conditions. The artificial 
structure must be razed to the ground and a wholly new 
one set in its place. Nature pure and undefiled is to be 
its motto. Nature must develop in perfect freedom without 
any interference or aid from us. All life must be grounded on 
simple human feelings, and so remain "natural" through all 
its manifold developments. Here we have a stirring appeal, a 
demand for nothing less than a complete renewal of existing 
conditions. 

This is the very soul of Rousseau's endeavour, but it is just 
here that the most serious complications arise. His negative 
position is quite clear, and so long as he keeps to it he is perfectly 
sure of himself; but when he turns to constructive work, his 
meaning is no longer so certain. What does he understand by 
"nature" and in what way does he think we can reach it? It 
can only mean for him the original condition of life, that which 
remains when we strip off all the disguises and shams of civilisa- 
tion. But there is no clear and precise picture of what such a 
condition would be: it is merely an impressionist sketch of a very 
idealising kind. Nature is invested with a romantic charm. 
Plainness and simplicity are transfigured into something pure 
and noble. In striking contrast to his unsparing criticism of 
society, Rousseau has a sentimental faith in a natural unspoilt 
goodness of the individual. "Everything good we can educe 
from beautiful souls by trust and frankness." The saying goes 
back to Plato, but it was Rousseau who first gave it its vogue. 
Also, from the intellectual point of view, Rousseau's natural 
man is anything but the undeveloped product of nature. He is 
the result of centuries of civilisation, from which he deliberately 
turns away to come back upon himself. Here we have to do 
with the finest flower of civilisation, a human being absolved 
from harsh necessity of toil and gently restored to nature's em- 



428 THE MODERN WORLD 

brace. It is this romantic transfiguration of nature which 
makes Rousseau expect a higher standard of worth and purity 
from the common people who live simply and constitute the 
great mass of the nation. External nature also, undisturbed by 
the rush and hurry of man, is looked upon as a kingdom of 
truth and peace. 

Rousseau, then, never seriously contemplates shaking off civi- 
lisation and going back to a crudely primitive nature. What he 
desires is a thorough remodelling of civilised conditions so that 
they may allow of individual independence and simplicity of 
life. He wants a new society that is more in touch with nature; 
he wants a rejuvenation of our whole existence. This line of 
thought obviously tends again in the direction of the older En- 
lightenment, but from this it is distinguished by the fact that 
Rousseau's criticism applies not to a few detached phases of life 
but to the whole of it, and that it is the result not of reasoned 
reflection but of immediate feeling. Hence, the violence of the 
movement, the passionate impulse toward revolution and 
renewal. 

Its main concern is not to effect this or that particular reform, 
but to change the individual himself, to make him strong, simple, 
and happy, not dependent on other men and things, but enjoy- 
ing the true freedom of an independent, healthy nature, "only 
desiring that which he can do, and only doing that which pleases 
him," always putting forth the whole of his energy. Such an 
individual will be conscious of himself as a human being, and 
not primarily as a member of some particular caste or order. 

The main requisite for the production of such people is a new 
kind of education. Education should not aim at securing external 
conformity from the pupil and bringing him up for purposes in 
which he has no native interest. It must, especially at the outset, 
allow nature to develop freely, and follow her bidding obediently 
(laissez Jaire en tout la nature); it must appeal everywhere to 
immediate experience and encourage the exercise of the indi- 
vidual's own powers. It must work securely from near to far, 
from simple to complex, and ground even its moral training on 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 429 

the simplest natural impulses. By these methods it will produce 
independent, busy, happy men. At the same time, the work of 
education itself is lifted on to a higher platform. Its business is 
not so much to transmit a ready-made culture as to build up a 
new one, by emphasising the simplest elements of life. Thus 
education is the chief agent in the formation of a new humanity, 
and is put upon an independent footing as distinct from other 
departments of life. 

It would, however, be impossible for education alone to 
accomplish this task. Fresh life must also be infused into every 
other department by a strengthening of the link which binds it 
to the individual's immediate experience, and by bringing it 
into closer touch with nature. This is Rousseau's real work. 
He develops the antithesis between nature and society through 
the whole range of human existence, everywhere rousing enthu- 
siasm or hostility, everywhere compelling man to decide one 
way or the other. 

Religion, he finds, is in sore need of reform. As customarily 
observed, it lacks inwardness. "The belief of children and of 
a good many grown-up people is just a matter of geography. 
Will they be rewarded for being born in Rome and not in Mecca ? 
When a child says that it believes in God, it does not really be- 
lieve in God, but rather believes Peter or James who tell him 
that there is something called ' God.' " Philosophical speculation 
again can help us but little. The really important factor is the 
inward voice of feeling. The truths of which it furnishes assur- 
ance are fewer and simpler, but on that account all the more 
fruitful. It gives us an immediate and therefore a sure hold 
upon God, Freedom and Immortality. A natural religion like 
this needs no learning; all honest people can share in it. Chris- 
tianity approaches most nearly to its ideal, that is to say, Christi- 
anity in its primitive and simple form, Christianity as conveyed 
to us in the lofty and attractive personality of Jesus, and not as 
interpreted by a degenerate civilisation. 

Art also stands in need of a transformation. A false and luxu- 
rious civilisation has severed it from nature and made it effemi- 



43© THE MODERN WORLD 

nate, corrupt and untrue. All the true ideals of aesthetic taste 
are given us by nature. Luxury and bad taste go hand in hand. 
The perverted art of modern times concerns itself only with grand 
people and far-away things. Comedy does not draw its material 
from the people at large, but from the narrow sphere of aristo- 
cratic life. Tragedy seeks to interest the Parisians in Sertorius 
and Pompey. And is it not also a pity that in seasons of joy and 
festivity we should so studiously isolate ourselves? "Exclusive 
enjoyments are the death of enjoyment. The true pleasures are 
those which we share with the people." 

Here, too, we should mention the revolution effected by Rous- 
seau in the feeling for nature. It is not so much pleasure and 
refreshment that he seeks in nature as a means of escape from 
human pettiness into a purer atmosphere. Grace and propor- 
tion attract him less than power and vastness. The sentiment 
of the sublime thrills and purifies the soul. Hence, springs an 
emotion of a new kind — the passion for mountains. " There our 
thoughts attain a certain grandeur and loftiness corresponding 
to those physical objects which inspire our emotion. It is as 
though in rising above the dwelling-place of man we left behind 
all low and earthly feeling, as though in drawing near to the 
spaces of ether, the spirit caught some hint of their inviolable 
purity." Throughout, the feeling for nature has a distinctly 
sentimental character : Everywhere she seems to breathe forth 
purity and peace, but as we contemplate her calm and tran- 
quillity, a feeling of melancholy often steals over us. This 
tender, dreamy, rhapsodic feeling for nature is well exemplified 
in the descriptions of the Lake of Geneva. Here we have the 
origin of a conception of nature which is at once romantic and 
optimistic, and long wielded an irresistible influence. 

Rousseau's politics are less soft and sentimental. Even here 
there is indeed no lack of romanticism. It is especially apparent 
in the firm belief that the main body of the people always desire 
the good, though they do not always see where it lies, a belief 
which is an essential and indispensable part of Rousseau's the- 
ory. But when we follow his treatment in detail, we see him 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 431 

throughout as the abstract logician who is carrying the funda- 
mental ideas of the Enlightenment to their extreme conse- 
quences. Not only does every right originate with individuals, 
but it is theirs for ever. A right which is sanctioned by tradition 
must give way before the eternal rights of man : as soon as it 
comes into collision with these, it is no longer a right. But 
should the individuals agree to bear the social yoke, the decision 
cannot but revolutionise their status as individuals. The union 
of individual wills results in a wider Ego, a collective body 
which obtains an absolute power through each member's ab- 
dication of his separate rights. There is, however, one in- 
dispensable condition for this subordination of the individual 
to the community, and that is that within the community all 
the individuals shall enjoy perfect freedom and equality. Their 
sovereignty is only collective and it is impossible for them to 
delegate it to individual persons. Moreover, one man cannot 
represent another. If the nation becomes so large that it can 
only act through delegates, the delegate must not be considered 
as representing his electors, but merely as bearing a mandate 
from them. All he has to do is to convey their will and inten- 
tion; he must not give expression to his own convictions. The 
executive must be entirely dependent on the power that makes 
the laws. This is quite in keeping with Rousseau's general ten- 
dency to treat political life as first and foremost an institution 
for applying law, and to look upon the subsumption of a par- 
ticular case under a general rule as the main business of politics 
— a view which does scant justice to the historical and personal 
element in political life. The main object of the state is no longer 
as the English Enlightenment conceived it, the protection of par- 
ticular callings, but rather the welfare of the whole. That this 
implies a strong, almost despotic, oppression of individual free- 
dom is observable even in Rousseau. But he looks upon the 
judgment of the people or majority of the people as a judgment 
of God, as the expression of an Absolute Reason. As a matter 
of fact, this French Radicalism only recognises freedom and 
equality within the state; it knows of no freedom in opposition 



432 THE MODERN WORLD 

to it. It really offers a classical expression of the doctrine of the 
state's omnipotence, clothed though it be in a democratic garb. 
Rousseau's optimism is strong enough to silence any doubt that 
may arise as to the practicability of his ideas ; it is assumed that 
man will be good and reasonable as soon as he is set within the 
new dispensation. 

Briefly, it is the sharp antithesis between their pessimism and 
their optimism which gives to Rousseau's political doctrines their 
abnormal power of awakening revolutionary zeal. For the bad, 
our social conventions are mainly responsible; the good is sup- 
plied by the individual. Left to follow our own nature we might 
be noble and happy; it is mainly the perversions of our social 
order which stand in our way. The conclusion is not far to seek. 
It comes in the form of a demand; the obstacle must fall, fall 
utterly. It is the emphasising of this contrast between the misery 
of our temporal conditions and the intrinsic goodness of human 
nature that has made Rousseau the apostle of the Revolution. 

A criticism of Rousseau is no very difficult task. To show up 
the inadequacies and ambiguities of his constructive work, we 
only need to press home the problems involved in the concept of 
''nature." It is easy to point out how lightly he takes up the 
hypothesis of the natural goodness of mankind, and how de- 
pendent he is in this respect on the Enlightenment. It can at 
the same time be shown that his unmistakable desire for spir- 
itual depth and a self-dependent inward life never gets beyond 
the stage of ferment and unrest, never leads to tangible results. 
Very often for spiritual content we are offered mere subjective 
feeling. Yet none the less Rousseau holds a pre-eminently 
important position. The profound influence he exerted on the 
best among his contemporaries is of itself sufficient to prevent 
us from valuing him too lightly. He has been immeasurably 
helpful in the work of quickening and rejuvenating life. His 
earnest desire for a regenerate humanity is at heart ethical. 
However unsatisfactory his solutions, his problems, at least, are 
profoundly significant, and we cannot but admire the vigorous 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 433 

insistence with which he presented them. In many cases he sim- 
ply took over ideas from the Enlightenment, set them free from 
their scholastic wrappings and converted them into common 
property. But he also opened up quite new avenues of thought. 
From him we may date the movement toward immediacy of 
feeling — the sense of tension and conflict between individual 
and society. He stands on the dividing-line between two epochs. 

The revulsion in favour of feeling which succeeded upon the in- 
tellectualism of the Enlightenment took Germany also by storm. 
The younger generation was feverishly eager to escape from the 
bondage of social convention into full individual freedom, to 
pass from the limitations of traditional formulas to the freshness 
of immediate impression and the unfettered development of 
every power, to turn from the artificial adornments of human 
existence to the truth and simplicity of nature, to replace cau- 
tious reflection by swift intuition and bold creation, adhesion to 
authoritative standards by a free and fertile originality. The 
individual asserts his autonomy; every one wants to be uncom- 
mon. The notion of genius gains currency, and becomes a fa- 
vourite subject of discussion. He who has none is put down as 
a " philistine." For Lavater (so W. von Humboldt tells us) 
every one passed as a philistine whose work though it possessed 
"right ideas, accurate expression, elegant style, yet showed 
nothing that could really be called genius." The emancipation 
from intellectualism assumed in Germany a very different form 
from that which it had taken in France. It did not shake the 
foundations of state, society and religion, but had rather a lit- 
erary and personal character. It claimed free outlet and expres- 
sion for individual feeling and entirely rejected the fashions and 
tyrannies of social life. On the other hand, it took little interest 
in the facts of politics and economics, and when it did occupy 
itself with religion it was not in order to submit religion to any 
radical criticism, but rather to release it from intellectualism 
and hand it over to feeling. In so far as all this remained merely 
a negative movement it had no inward self-sufficiency nor any 



434 THE MODERN WORLD 

compensating power of construction. It could not give rise to 
a new conception of life and the world. But it did remove hin- 
drances and prepare the way for a greater movement to come. 
Without this season of storm and stress, German Idealism and 
the creations of its genius would have been impossible. 

With Herder the movement assumes a more settled, less turbu- 
lent character, and we are already approaching the zenith of the 
classical period. He, too, repudiates the Enlightenment and has a 
strong leaning toward what is vital and intuitive, toward fresh- 
ness of life and immediacy of feeling. But he puts the movement 
upon a firmer footing and gives it a greater solidity, since he does 
not rest in feeling only, but penetrates beyond to the conception 
of human life as an organic whole. In the harmonious co-oper- 
ation of every power he sees an ideal of universal brotherhood; 
moreover, he puts the individual in the larger setting of his his- 
torical and social connections. At the same time, his heart 
goes out to nature and he longs to revive the conditions and 
surroundings which are natural to our humanity. Many are the 
links that are forged between nature and spirit. The individual 
is shown to be related to the race, and in the race a character- 
istic individuality is disclosed. The world of reality is in con- 
stant flux, and all progress is from within. Here in all important 
features we have the way prepared for the romantic writers and 
the historical school. It is true that Herder is content with mere 
outline and does not attempt to fill in details; but his wonderful 
many-sidedness and assimilative power, and more especially his 
capacity to see things as a whole, have been in the highest degree 
stimulating and suggestive. Herder is an indispensable link in 
the chain of German development. 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 435 

II. GERMAN IDEALISM 

(a) Kant 

(a) GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 

With Kant we again come upon a great thinker, one of the 
greatest of all thinkers. The approach to him is particularly 
difficult, more difficult indeed than in the case of any other 
philosopher. This difficulty is not due so much to his involved 
and cumbersome style — we Germans are notoriously well- 
accustomed to clumsiness of style — but much more to the fact 
that his philosophy is in sharp contradiction with our customary 
modes of thought, and calls for revolutionary changes in both 
our theory and our practice without clearly specifying what the 
new systems are to be. Still Kant could never have taken such 
deep hold upon men's minds, never have had so strong an influ- 
ence upon man as man, were it not for the fact that his life-work 
gives expression to certain simple truths which appeal to every 
one. Our easiest way of penetrating to these truths is to repre- 
sent to ourselves the insistent, underlying needs of his nature, 
needs which his spiritual self-preservation required him to make 
explicit. For this is the motive-power of a great man's life and 
work : he is possessed with a belief, with a profound conviction 
which demands imperatively something that his environment 
cannot give, something that is foreign — nay, even opposed — to 
the thoughts and perceptions of the world into which he has 
been born. The inevitable result is collision and conflict, and 
the self-centred personality can only be victorious in so far as it 
produces a new world answering to the requirements of its own 
nature. The struggle and the final triumph furnish us with a 
wonderful drama. Nowhere do we find a more clear and con- 
vincing proof that man is not merely the product of his environ- 
ment, not merely a precipitate of his social atmosphere. 

Now Kant's mental constitution led him to make two import- 
ant demands which seem at first independent of each other, but 
whidh his system brought finally into yery close alliance. He 



436 THE MODERN WORLD 

demands a new kind of knowledge and a new kind of morality. 
What had hitherto passed as knowledge seems to him to rest 
upon a very insecure foundation and to drift helplessly between 
an excessive demand upon human capacity on the one hand, 
and on the other, a destructive scepticism. Morality, likewise, 
as ordinarily conceived, lacks both a sure foundation and a 
genuine content. Nevertheless, Kant is absolutely convinced 
that a true knowledge and a true morality are perfectly possible. 
A belief so inwrought in our nature, so inspiring to our work, 
must be capable of being fully formulated and made into an 
inalienable possession. For Kant, this problem became the all- 
absorbing occupation of his life and a motive to indefatigable 
industry. But the greatest triumph he achieved was to show, 
by means of a radical change of method, that the two problems 
had but one solution. The new view allowed of no quarrel be- 
tween true knowledge and true morality, but made it clear that 
each required the assistance of the other. This, however, was only 
rendered possible by the introduction of new standards and new 
values, by the breaking up of the old Order, and the clear and 
confident inception of a New. 

(/3) THE CRITIQUE OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE BREAK-UP 
OF THE OLD INTELLECTUAL ORDER 

All knowledge aims at truth, but whether truth is in any 
way possible to man has become a matter of ever-growing uncer- 
tainty. To primitive thought and the primitive science which 
accompanied it, truth was merely the correspondence of our 
ideas with a reality outside them. Such a correspondence pre- 
sented no difficulties so long as no gulf had as yet opened between 
the world and the soul, so long as the world was regarded as alive 
and the soul as essentially related to material things. Modern 
thought, however, has put an end to that immediate connection ; 
by separating soul and world and bringing them into sharp an- 
tithesis it has made the old idea of truth untenable. The thinkers 
of the Enlightenment had not failed to see this; but it was Kant 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 437 

who first showed clearly and forcefully that to wish to know a 
thing as it is independently of us is arrant absurdity. For things 
in the process of becoming known to us must inevitably change 
their character. And even if the object did correspond to 
our image of it, how could we be aware of the fact, since it is 
impossible for us to put ourselves in a third position outside 
both object and image? Moreover, how, on this view, should 
we find a place for the attributes of universal validity and neces- 
sity, without which there is no true knowledge ? We should have 
to give up all hope of such knowledge if our ideas had to con- 
form to objects outside us. 

But there is also another possibility, and it is the rigorously 
consistent working-out of this possibility with all its various impli- 
cations that constitutes Kant's greatest achievement. Might it 
not be possible, he asks, that instead of our ideas conforming to 
things, things should conform to our ideas, that we should know 
things only in so far as they enter into the forms of our thought 
and intuition, know them only in the shape given to them by 
our own mental constitution? This is the famous revolution 
which Kant effected and which he himself compared to the vic- 
tory of the Copernican over the Ptolemaic conception of the 
universe. Kant, like Copernicus, transferred the centre of obser- 
vation from the observed to the observer. Truth so subjective 
in origin can of course have validity only for the Subject : it can 
only be true for man. We cannot go beyond the realm of our 
own presentations, i. e., the phenomenal world. Our only 
chance of securing truth lies in restricting ourselves to our own 
sphere, and resigning all claim to a knowledge beyond it. The 
product of our mental activity could only be regarded as absolute 
truth if, in knowing, we were also creating, producing reality 
through the very movement of our thought. But this we cannot 
do. Human thought, in order to know anything, must have an 
objective stimulus of some kind; to this extent it is always 
strictly dependent on experience; if it overstep the limits of 
experience and assert a truth in which experience is ignored, it 
simply falls into a void. To put it in another way: the forms of 



438 THE MODERN WORLD 

knowledge have a subjective origin, but the matter must be fur- 
nished from outside. Without this datum, knowledge is impos- 
sible, but what we make out of the datum is our own concern. 
We do not find a universe ready-made, an experience already 
organised; it is we ourselves who must shape it from within. 
The orderly sequence of the phenomenal world, which we speak 
of as nature, we ourselves bring into it, and we should never 
have been able to find it there if we had not put it there. This 
helps us to understand the proud saying: "The understanding 
does not derive its laws from nature, but rather imposes them 
upon nature." 

So far this is all mere assertion which still lacks proof. The 
whole of the "Critique of Pure Reason" is occupied with fur- 
nishing this proof. Kant shows, step by step, how everything that 
helps us to give unity to multiplicity and to make reality coherent, 
originates with us and not with things, has its source not without 
but within. The proof completely revolutionised the traditional 
conception of reality. For the fact that our subjective con- 
tributions had been attributed to things as their own properties, 
and that the subjective world had been changed into a realm of 
objective essences existing independently of the subject, had 
given rise to endless illusions and misconstructions of reality. 
Kant's recognition of this fact results in a most fundamental 
change of values throughout the whole domain of knowledge. 
One point strengthens and supports another. From learned, 
pedantic, sometimes wearisome beginnings, there is a painfully 
cautious advance, step by step, till at last an appeal is made to 
the whole man and he is called on to fashion his thought and 
life anew. 

Space and time were formerly held to impose themselves upon 
us as given forms to which all things were subject. A close 
scrutiny of their content and the manner in which they come to 
be, now makes it clear to the investigator that they are really 
furnished by man himself, that they are nothing more than sub- 
jective forms of intuition through which we order our impres- 
sions. We do not take over these forms from some other world, 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 439 

but within them we fashion a world of our own which is valid 
only for us. This conclusion seems to be attested with quite 
peculiar force and clearness by the universal validity and neces- 
sity of mathematical propositions both in geometry and arith- 
metic, a validity which could not have an external origin. Thus 
the assumed substantiality of the sense-world falls to the ground, 
and we seem to have lost all sure anchorage. 

For a long time it seemed to Kant that it was possible from 
this upheaval of our sense-life to take refuge in thought : thought 
might surely open up a valid realm of truth. But later on, the sub- 
jectivising tendency invaded this field also. Here, too, try as we 
may to press forward, we can never overstep the limits of our 
own sphere; from the smallest thing to the greatest, it is our 
own thought which is shaping and fashioning that which once 
seemed an independent datum, an inherent quality of things 
themselves. "The understanding is essential to all experience 
and to the very possibility of experience; its primary function 
is not to make the presentation of an object clear, but to make it 
possible." The concept of a thing is framed by our understand- 
ing, in order to give stability and unity to otherwise disconnected 
impressions. Moreover, all the coherency that we observe in 
phenomena is our own work; it is not ordained or imparted 
from without. The causal connection, in particular, as Hume 
had already seen, is not something externally given, nor yet is it, 
as he thought, a product of mere association and habit; it is a 
fundamental law of our mind, without which it would be im- 
possible for us ever to connect phenomena together according to 
any fixed and universally valid laws. Kant proceeds to prove 
this with the most unwearying care. He shows that it is through 
thought that impressions which otherwise remain vague and 
formless are welded into experiences, that it is thought and not 
mere sense that gives us a coherent reality; and in this proof he 
furnishes us with a most fundamental refutation of materialism, 
since materialism holds that both things and their relations are 
externally given. In fact, through his rigid distinction between 
what is palpable to sense and what is logically convincing, Kant 



440 THE MODERN WORLD 

sealed the fate of materialism, showing it to be the unscientific 
view of the untrained mind. 

So far we have been moving entirely within the sphere of 
experience. But experience, no matter how dependent on it all 
our human knowledge may be, cannot constitute the ultimate 
boundary of our thought. It seems rather as though our reason 
possessed the power to drive us forcibly beyond it, to set us in 
opposition to it, inciting us to apprehend it as a whole, and 
ascertain its ultimate base. Over and above the conditioned 
world of experience we cannot help seeking for something that 
is unconditioned. But though this impulse undoubtedly be- 
tokens an incomparable greatness of nature, it yet lands us in 
the most serious difficulties. We are not equal to the task from 
which we find it so impossible to desist. We can never succeed 
in winning to a secure stand-point beyond experience, whence 
we may find our way back to it. Despite the overmastering 
impulse to pass beyond it, we are thrown back on it again and 
again, till at last we are bound to recognise that our effort to 
reach ultimate conclusions must always be limited by our own 
reason, and that we have no right to take the subjective neces- 
sity of certain connections among our concepts as an objective 
necessity in the connections of things in themselves. 

This conviction, however, is bound to have a profoundly dis- 
turbing effect, since the endeavour to reach a unifying principle 
and ultimate settlement concerns just those questions which are 
most vital to man : the problems of God, Soul, and the Universe. 
We cannot understand our psychical life without some unifying 
centre to which we may refer all its varied experiences; it was 
from a central unity of this kind that the old speculative psy- 
chology used to construct a science of the nature of the soul, 
attributing to it qualities of simplicity, indestructibility, and so 
on. As a matter of fact, the unifying principle must be within 
the world of our thought and experience, and therefore the ques- 
tion as to the nature of the soul is for ever unanswerable; unan- 
swerable, too, the other question as to whether the soul can pos- 
sibly exist as an indestructible unity after death. Moreover, we 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 441 

seek to combine the multiplicity of phenomena into a coherent 
world-system, and to throw light upon the constitution, the 
fundamental forces, the general structure of this system. But 
in the process we fall into hopeless contradictions; every asser- 
tion that we seek to make is at once confronted with an equally 
forcible negation. Assertion and negation are each strong 
enough to counteract each other, but neither is strong enough 
to establish its own claim. For example, if we think of the 
world as limited in space and time, the conception is too small — 
too great if we think of it as unlimited : in either case, inadmis- 
sible. But since no third alternative is available, we clearly 
cannot escape the inference that the world we thus picture to 
ourselves is no reality existing outside us, but something we 
have been attempting to construct out of our own mental re- 
sources, with the result that in the process we have experienced 
the clash of colliding interests, and have been left oscillating 
between two incompatible conclusions. Again, in regard to the 
most ultimate of all problems of this kind, the idea of God, we 
have a similar experience. If there is no ultimate, self-contained 
Ground of all Reality, there can be no resting-place for thought; 
but we can suppose ourselves to have obtained an objective 
proof of such a Being only through surreptitiously transforming 
subjective impulses into objective necessities, and making a 
bold leap straight from the idea to a reality existing outside it. 

Everything, then, combines to make it impossible for us to 
transcend the sphere of our own thought and reach a knowledge 
of the real nature of things or the ultimate grounds of reality. 
What seemed to us to be imparted from a reality beyond us is 
really what we ourselves have put into a world which baffles 
every attempt to pass beyond it; it can never become an objec- 
tive truth for us. 

The impression first made upon us by this displacement from 
the objective to the subjective stand-point is of necessity dis- 
turbing and disheartening. For it was clearly the consideration 
of truths as entirely independent of us which gave them their 
significance and value. From truth in the old sense of the term 



442 THE MODERN WORLD 

we are now completely shut out, and shut out for ever. No ad- 
vance of knowledge can effect a change in this crucial particular. 
The sphere of individual experience may become wider and 
wider, but we can never get beyond it. 

It is true that we also gain much from the change. The Sub- 
ject cannot give form and consistency to a world, cannot leave 
the moorings of experience and reach out after ultimate grounds 
without gaining in the venture a peculiar breadth and grandeur. 
The sharp distinction of form from matter, and the exclusive 
assignment of form to the soul, leads us to regard the soul as of 
a much finer texture than had hitherto been supposed. Even 
its apparently simplest operations now reveal a wealth of com- 
plex organisation. Minute observation leads us to recognise 
a system of intricate connections where once there was thought 
to be only a point. How very much more, for example, has Kant 
taught us to see in the process of sense-perception! Moreover, 
the transference of all agency to the purely- psychical domain 
helps to bring out more clearly the peculiarities and distinctions 
of the psychical life, and separate them more sharply from each 
other. Kant is especially strong in his discovery of qualitative 
differences and oppositions — very different in this respect from 
Leibniz, who sought to arrange all manifoldness in a continu- 
ously graduated scale. Thus Kant distinguishes more clearly 
than any one before him between sensibility and understanding, 
understanding and reason, the theoretical and the practical 
reason, the good and the beautiful, jurisprudence and moral- 
ity. All these distinctions, varying from great to trivial, make 
our view of reality incomparably richer, more living and more 
determinate. 

But Kant does not only understand how to make distinctions; 
he can connect together the results of his analysis, and bring 
them all under a unifying principle. His adoption of the sub- 
jective stand-point makes this task incomparably easier than it 
was before. For it is only when that which was once regarded 
as coming from without is seen to be contributed from within 
that all the possibilities can come under review and receive a 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 443 

systematic and exhaustive treatment. Comprehensive totalities 
emerge — as, for example, the whole of experience — in which 
each individual thing has its especial task and its appointed 
place. Apart from the adoption of this subjective stand-point 
Kant's thought- world would never have been the greatest 
constructive system which the history of philosophy has 
known. From no other centre can the whole wealth of 
reality be so readily transmuted into an organised system of 
thought. It is from this centre, above all others, that the 
idea of system has developed into a power which nothing can 
resist. 

The increased emphasis laid on the part played by the sub- 
ject changes also the aspect of the subject itself, and makes of it 
a spiritual nexus, a coherent, complex whole. By "subject" 
Kant means not so much the particular individual as a mental 
structure common to all individuals. His subjective presenta- 
tion of the world is not the work of the isolated individual, but 
of mankind as a whole. Thus it is characteristic of his work 
generally that he never asks how the individual man attains to 
science, morality, etc., but in what sense, science, morality, etc., 
are possibilities of our mental life, and what capacities and sys- 
tematic connections they demand and reveal. Thus if Kant 
closes to our knowledge the world of things, yet he sets it the 
new task of investigating the faculty wherewith man constructs 
his own world. From a knowledge of the world and a search 
into the nature of things, we turn to the self-knowledge of the 
human mind and to an investigation of the process by which it 
builds up the world of experience. 

Thus Kant's theory of knowledge is as rich in suggestion as in 
achievement. Still the fact that it limits man to a separate 
sphere of his own would prevent us from ever attaining to any- 
thing more than a truth purely relative to man, and this can 
never be the truth which we have been accustomed to seek and 
cannot cease from seeking. Thus if Kant's work had closed with 
his "Critique of Knowledge," he would have ranked among the 
predominantly critical thinkers. This, however, it does not do. 



444 THE MODERN WORLD 

Compared with his whole achievement, the Critique is a mere 
propaedeutic to his final convictions and opens up to us the do- 
main of the Practical Reason. 

(7) THE MORAL WORLD 

The adoption of the subjective stand-point which is the funda- 
mental characteristic of Kant's whole philosophy assumes, in his 
treatment of action, an aspect quite different from that which it 
wears in his Theory of Knowledge. In the latter domain, the 
activity of the subject is dependent upon and directed toward 
an inscrutable world, but this in no wise precludes the existence 
of another domain where it can act independently and finally 
produce a world from itself. This however, it can only do in 
so far as it secures its independence from everything external and 
finds its main problem within itself alone. There can then be 
no possibility of life and action of this kind being realised 
through the pursuit of happiness; for, in pursuing after happi- 
ness, man is referred to something outside himself which be- 
comes his master; it is only experience which can teach us what 
conduces to happiness. In order to be independent, "autono- 
mous," we must act without reference to any subjective ends. 
Action must find its guiding principle in its own formal nature. 

The question now arises whether the sphere of man's activity 
reveals any such autonomous action, and it is answered with a 
confident affirmative, on the ground that the moral law, the 
unconditional ought, the idea of duty, is a fact of our experi- 
ence. The essence of morality is that it demands of us certain 
actions and sentiments solely for their own sake and without any 
regard to the consequences for us. The moral law does not 
speak to us conditionally, but unconditionally, as a " Categorical 
Imperative," and the fulfilment of its demand is not regarded 
as a special merit, but as a simple duty and obligation. Implicit 
here, however, we have an important problem, the solution of 
which opens up a new world. Whence comes this law which 
speaks to us with such confident authority? If it were a com- 
mand imposed from without, it could never influence our wills 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 445 

and claim obedience as a duty; for anything that comes from 
without, even were it a command of God Himself, must depend 
for its justification and execution on some consequence external 
to the action, must excite to action or discourage it by means of 
reward or punishment. But this would destroy it as a moral 
good, since nothing can be morally good that is not pursued for 
its own sake. Thus the law must originate within us; it gives 
voice to our own rational nature; it is our own will that makes 
the moral command into a duty. This, however, sets the soul 
in an entirely new light. It gains a profundity of its own, and 
an inner gradation. There is an "intelligible" nature within us 
which appeals to our empirical self as an Imperative, but as an 
imperative of our own being, as a self-realisation. There is a 
rift in man's own nature: he is at once too great and too small; 
small, when set over against that law whose stern demands his 
conduct is so far from realising; great, immeasurably great, in 
so far as he co-operates with the law, recognises in it his inner- 
most will and being, and becomes himself the law-giver and 
the part-founder of a new order. It is in the light of such a con- 
text that we can understand the well-known words: "There are 
two things that fill my mind, the oftener and longer I dwell upon 
them, with ever-fresh and ever-growing admiration and awe: 
the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. 
Neither is veiled in mystery or lost in immensity so that I need 
to seek them beyond my sphere of vision and merely surmise 
that they are there. I see them before me and link them imme- 
diately with the consciousness of my existence. . . . The second 
begins from my invisible self, my personality, and exhibits me 
in a world which has true infinity, but which is traceable only 
by the understanding." 

The moral law, however, can only reach this height by rigidly 
respecting its own independence and refusing to amalgamate 
with any alien element. Only the mere form of the law, the 
universality of the maxims, must control our action; we must 
act in such a way that the maxim we follow could at any time 
be erected into a principle of universal legislation, and that our 



446 THE MODERN WORLD 

motives, raised to the status of universal laws, should never con- 
flict with each other. We must act out of mere respect for the 
law, as vessels and instruments of the law, but a law of which 
we are the law-givers. It is only consistent that Kant should 
distinguish clearly between moral action and natural inclina- 
tion; nay, more, that he should make action contrary to incli- 
nation the very sign and token of a dutiful disposition. This 
does not mean that he pronounces inclination to be wrong, but 
that he places the moral law far above it as something essentially 
higher. It is just this rigorous conception of the problem of life 
which allows us to think so highly of man as an autonomous 
being. "It is autonomy which gives dignity to human nature 
and every rational being." Autonomy, and not mere intellect, 
first differentiates man from the animal; "if reason in man is 
made to serve the same ends which instinct serves in animals, 
it can do nothing to lift its possessor above the merely animal 
state." At the same time we have a clearer and more precise 
elaboration of concepts which from old have occupied mankind, 
but which hitherto have lacked the coherency given to them by 
a scientific conviction — concepts such as those of "personality" 
and "character." The mere capacity to think is not sufficient 
to constitute personality; there must also be the capacity for 
moral responsibility, and this implies an independence of all 
merely natural mechanism. Character, however, is neither 
"a purely natural aptitude nor an abiding effect produced by 
habitual action, but the absolute unity of the inner principle 
which regulates life's changes." 

The crucial point of the whole position lies in the idea of free- 
dom, freedom as the self-determination of the rational will, as 
the capacity to initiate a state from within. It is the presup- 
position of all morality; as certainly as morality exists, so cer- 
tainly does freedom exist; capacity must go with obligation. 
"You can, because, you ought." To this idea of freedom the 
sequence of causal phenomena was inexorably opposed, so long 
at least as this sequence was supposed to be a law inherent in 
things themselves. The "Critique of the Reason" showed, 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 4 47 

however, that it was the work of our own minds, valid only for 
the phenomenal world, and allowing plenty of room for another 
order of things should the motives for postulating such an order 
be found sufficiently forcible. Now morality furnishes us with 
such motives, so that freedom becomes the fulcrum of Archimedes 
"at which the reason can apply a lever." From the starting- 
point of freedom a new realm opens out opposed to the purely 
natural domain. Morality no longer appears as a product within 
an already given world, but as the making of a new world with 
values of its own, not dependent on experience for support, 
even daring to face direct contradiction from experience. For 
"in the contemplation of nature, experience gives us rules ready 
to hand and is the fount of truth; in regard to the moral laws, 
however, experience (alas!) is the mother of illusion, and it is 
extremely undesirable to derive the norm of what I ought to do 
from that which actually is done or to let this fetter my action 
in any way." So morality, untroubled by the outside world and 
the ways and works of men, has simply to follow her own path, 
convinced that her world alone contains the things that are 
really good and make life worth the living. "We can think of 
nothing anywhere in the world — no, nor even out of it — which 
can be considered unreservedly good, except alone a good will." 
"All good that is not grafted on to a morally good disposition is 
nothing but illusion and wretchedness glossed over." " If justice 
perishes, then it is no longer worth while for man to live upon 
the earth." Thus moral action is triumphantly emancipated 
from the world as given, securely founded in itself, made entirely 
independent of external results. 

This valuation of the moral world is supported by the con- 
viction that here, at the heart of things, we have at last not 
merely something specifically human but something absolutely 
valid. For the freedom which is at the root of morality is not a 
special quality of man as man, but it belongs to the essence of 
reason, and gives access to an absolute truth common to all 
rational beings. In this way we have glimpses, "however weak 
our vision," into the world of the supersensual, into the deepest 



448 THE MODERN WORLD 

abyss of reality. Kant finds here a sure answer to the question 
as to the ultimate meaning of the world : it cannot be other than 
a moral meaning. It becomes perfectly clear that in the domain 
of thought Kant's negation issues finally in an affirmation and 
is subservient to it. 

But even in this bold venture, he preserves the caution and 
self-criticism which characterise all his work. The ideas devel- 
oped in this new field remain fundamentally different from all 
theoretical doctrines; they are always based upon personal con- 
viction and presuppose the full recognition of the moral law; 
they are, too, not so much a matter of knowledge as of faith, 
i. e., a faith of the reason, very different from faith of an ecclesi- 
astical or historical kind. 

So much for the idea of freedom, the fundamental presup- 
position of all morality. But there are also two other ideas 
which, according to Kant, are the necessary outcome of morality 
— the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. The 
moral law demands a strict fulfilment, a completely holy life; 
and this is an altogether insoluble problem for the individual 
man within the confines of his earthly career. Still, we could 
never put forth our whole strength in the endeavour to reach 
something which we knew to be absolutely unattainable, so that 
our action needs to be fortified by the conviction that after this 
brief span of life we go on living to all eternity. Again, the nat- 
ural constitution of things often puts a wide gulf between virtue 
and happiness. It often denies to the deserver of happiness the 
happiness which is his due. And yet we could never work 
whole-heartedly for the realisation of the good, if we thought it 
to be powerless and ineffective, so that the idea of the good 
necessarily gives rise to the demand for a moral order superior 
to the natural, and therewith for an All-powerful moral Being, 
namely, God. In these developments Kant's work falls short of 
its usual level, and they give very unsatisfactory expression to 
what is deepest in his own conviction. Nowhere more than here 
are we conscious of the extent to which the prose of the Enlight- 
enment still cleaves to him. 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 449 

The morality which Kant enforces is of a strong and manly 
type; it is even rigid and austere. It disdains all connection 
with mere feeling and considers itself pure only when the Idea 
of Reason acts directly on the will. The virtues, again, which 
Kant holds as especially binding are of a similarly severe kind : 
they are veracity and justice, veracity concerning chiefly the 
actor himself and justice his relation to his fellow-men. We 
must practice veracity not primarily to others, but to ourselves. 
Everywhere it concerns us to be perfectly open with ourselves, 
to regulate our action by our own conviction and independent 
decision, and not by reference to fluctuating opinions and exter- 
nal authority. Even the most painful conscientiousness may not 
succeed in guarding us from error, but its moral value is not 
thereby impaired. "It may well be that not everything which a 
man holds for true is true (for he may be mistaken), but in all 
that he says he must be veracious." As for the mutual rela- 
tionships of men, they must be shaped in accordance with the 
idea of justice. Each man, as a member of the Order of Reason, 
has an inalienable independence and the moral dignity of being 
an end in himself; we must, accordingly, show mutual respect 
and never treat each other as mere means. This requirement 
entails distinctive political and social arrangements in which we 
can trace some influence of the English ideal of a society of free 
citizens. But the German conception goes much deeper than 
the English, since the doctrine which found little favour in Eng- 
land, the doctrine, viz., that our morally rational nature tran- 
scends experience, is now clearly formulated and developed, 
and society, moreover, finds its supreme end not in well-being, 
but in justice. Kant has extended this desire for justice to inter- 
national relationships, and opposed to the incessant state of war 
the demand for an abiding peace — not so much on account of 
the material damage of war, its loss and devastation, nor yet 
from a compassionate feeling of humanity, but because it seems 
to him revolting and intolerable that rational beings should 
found their social life on cunning and force instead of on justice 
and reason. 



450 THE MODERN WORLD 

Though in detail Kant's exposition of this view bristles with 
problems, yet it undoubtedly gives clear expression to the 
majesty and dignity of the moral law. A no less distinguished 
critic than Goethe counts it Kant's "immortal achievement," 
"to have rescued us from the sentimentality into which we had 
sunk." It is in keeping with this greater seriousness that there 
should also be greater strictness in the judgment of man's moral 
condition. It had been the tendency of the Enlightenment to 
see in evil a mere defect of our sensual nature, which would dis- 
appear in proportion as the reason became stronger. Kant, on 
the contrary, traces evil to the will : for him it is not a mere fall- 
ing short of the good, but is in direct antagonism to it; it is not 
dependent on outward conditions, but is "radically" evil. The 
problem thus becomes more acute, but the philosopher is not 
thereby constituted a believer in the dogma of the Fall and 
Original Sin, that "most unseemly of all conceptions." For 
man has also a permanent disposition toward goodness, and this 
must be energetically called upon to confront the foe. Instead 
of hoping and tarrying for a miraculous rescue, let the reason 
which is ever present within us be summoned to unfold all its 
power. "To challenge courage is already half-way toward 
inspiring it; but on the other hand, (alike in morality and re- 
ligion), the lazy thinking which has no trust in itself and waits 
pusillanimously for outside aid, relaxes all a man's powers and 
makes him unworthy of the aid when it comes." Thus a wide 
gulf separates Kant, with his confidence in man's own activity, 
from Augustine; nor is there much in common here between 
Kant and Luther, despite their many other points of agreement. 
Kant says: "You can, because you ought"; Luther, "You can 
draw no logical inference from Ought to Can" (a debere ad 
posse non valet consequentia). Kant is primarily a moral, Luther 
primarily a religious personality, for with Kant, religion, being 
"the recognition of all our duties as commanded of God," is 
only an intensified morality; it has no separate sphere of its 
own, and however high its subjective value, it occupies but a low 
place in the world of thought. 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 451 

(8) THE SPHERE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 

Generally speaking, Kant subordinates every aspect of life 
to the idea of the good; it is this which must control and direct 
the shaping of life in its various departments. To the beautiful, 
however, he gives an increased independence and distinctive- 
ness. Even though in last resort he subordinates the beautiful 
to the good as being only a "symbol of the morally good," 
even though he understands by "taste" a "capacity to pass 
judgment upon the sensuous representation of moral ideas," 
yet his moralising tendency has never laid hold upon the central 
doctrine of aesthetics. He recognises the beautiful as something 
independent, and extricates it from the confusion in which it 
has hitherto been involved. A more exact analysis of the dis- 
tinctive character of the beautiful leads us to distinguish clearly 
between satisfaction in the beautiful, on the one hand, and on 
the other, satisfaction in the pleasant or the good. The former 
is disinterested, whereas interest always enters into the satis- 
faction we feel in the pleasant or the good. There are also 
other important differences. The pleasant is that which satis- 
fies the senses by the immediate feeling it excites, and cannot, 
therefore, claim universal validity. The good is that which, by 
help of the reason, can give satisfaction through the mere con- 
ception of it. But the beautiful is that which, apart from any 
conception, is presented as the object of a satisfaction which 
should be the same for every one. 

This universal validity of the aesthetic judgment can only be 
understood when the judgment refers exclusively to the form of 
the objects and this form is regarded as not inherent in the 
objects, but as something introduced by ourselves. So in the 
beautiful we are apprehending and experiencing not an outside 
world, but the condition of our own souls. We call things 
"beautiful," not on account of their own constitution, as to 
which we are perfectly in the dark, but because they have the 
power to stir our mental faculties, particularly the senses and 
the understanding, into animated and harmonious activity. 



452 THE MODERN WORLD 

Thus, in aesthetics as in morals, man is freed from the oppression 
of an outside world and is referred to his own inner experience. 

This subjective nature of the beautiful is brought out by 
Kant with especial vividness in his treatment of the conception 
of the sublime. The sublime rouses in us a feeling of sharp 
contrast — this is its distinctive mark; but we could never experi- 
ence this feeling of contrast, if the contrast were between us and 
an outer world and did not rather belong to our own soul. In 
the sublime, it is not our relationship to things outside us that 
we are aware of, but our inability, even by straining our imagin- 
ative faculties to the utmost, to grasp the infinity of the idea of 
reason. The impressions of sense can only be called sublime in 
so far as they arouse this inward movement: "the true sub- 
limity is in the spirit of the person who passes the judgment, and 
not in the natural object." 

Thus Kant has found a basis for the beautiful in man's own 
spiritual nature, and has therewith secured its independence 
from outside influence and its triumph over mere utility. It is 
this which has drawn our poets to him so strongly and made 
them feel such close kinship with him. A notable instance is 
Goethe, who could find that the great central ideas of the 
" Critique of Judgment" were in entire agreement with his whole 
previous experience, whether in thought, action or artistic 
creation. For Kant, however, the beautiful furnishes a con- 
necting link between the lofty world of the moral idea and the 
realm of phenomena which is all around us; it gives coherency 
to the sharply-defined divisions of his system, and softens down 
the austerity which is its dominant note. 

(e) APPRECIATION AND CRITICISM 

It is no easy task to pass any confident judgment upon Kant. 
His influence on the history of thought is sufficient to show how 
differently he may be interpreted, and how various are the in- 
centives that may be derived from his work. Fichte and Her- 
bart, Schleiermacher and Schopenhauer, the Neo-kantians and 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 453 

others, have all appealed to Kant and claimed to be his spiritual 
successors. His power to dominate men's minds and to attract 
the movement of thought ever back again to himself is due not 
so much to any finality in his achievement as to the haunting 
nature of the problems he has raised and the impossibility of 
putting them by. The first note of Kant's work is one of ruth- 
less negation. Not only did he force us to give up many indi- 
vidual beliefs of which we had never thought to be dispossessed 
— he made our whole previous manner of viewing the world 
altogether untenable, and by his vigorous attempt to give more 
precision to ideas, degraded what had hitherto passed for scien- 
tific thinking to the status of prescientific speculation. It is true 
that he also gave us something which should have been sufficient 
to compensate abundantly for what we had lost. But he was 
never able to endow this positive contribution with the final and 
convincing character of his negative criticism. He leaves it full 
of problems which challenge us imperatively to a further devel- 
opment. Divisions of opinion, partings of the ways are here all 
too easy, and the average man is left with a strong feeling of 
insecurity. That we should be obliged to leave one bank with- 
out safely reaching the other, puts us in an intolerable position. 
It is no wonder that so much force of intellect was required in 
order to escape from it and, by the gain of a secure standing- 
ground, to make the Yes as powerful as the No. 

At this juncture we must limit ourselves to the one point of 
fundamental importance which dominates the whole of Kant's 
philosophy and determines its peculiar character: that is, the 
shifting of truth and reality from object to subject, from the 
world to the soul. Kant, in this respect, was taking his place 
in a movement of more wide-spread and historic import than he 
himself was aware of. He for his part regarded his critical tend- 
ency as in implacable opposition to the "Dogmatism" hitherto 
prevalent, but as a matter of fact, the modern era contains from 
the outset the germ of this subjectivising movement, and has 
sought with ever-increasing energy to bring it to maturity. Mod- 
ern thought no longer regards man in the old way as part of a 



454 THE MODERN WORLD 

world which embraces him in its vast framework; the movement 
is no longer from an object to a subject which responds to it by 
virtue of an inner relationship, but the subject is the starting- 
point and the mainstay of life; this is the basis from which the 
world must be built up and receive its content. But at the same 
time, the subject itself becomes a problem and the most difficult 
of all problems. So long as it was thought to be merely one 
single point, it was hopelessly unequal to the task of building 
up a world; an impenetrable universe stood over against it 
blank and rigid, with which it could not undertake to wrestle for 
want of an inward unity in its own life. Now Kant effects here 
an advance of great importance; the subject for him is not so 
much one single point as a connected vital system, a psychical 
fabric, a spiritual structure. By virtue of this transformation it 
does become strong enough to develop into a world of its own, 
to make itself the central point of reality, to complete that revo- 
lution whose accomplishment is the dream of the whole of our 
modern era. Kant's thought moves laboriously upward through 
much painstaking work, hypercritical reflection, acute analysis. 
Nowhere else, perhaps, are such resources of intellect brought to 
bear upon a problem. But however slow and tedious the work, 
it leads surely on to the point where the new view opens before 
us ; there is revealed a new world of fact, and the surprise that 
bursts upon us does not lie outside us but in our own nature; 
what hitherto seemed simple and obvious now becomes a prob- 
lem, and leads us to recognise a greater depth in life than we 
had before suspected. Even science now becomes aware that 
man's inward life is an organised inner world. 

At the same time a prospect unfolds before us of a life which 
is self-contained, independently pursuing lofty aims, decisively 
rejecting as degrading the standards which had hitherto satis- 
fied the majority of men. The discovery in man's own soul of 
a spiritual depth, an infinity, a realm of absolute ideals, results 
in lifting him clear above all the narrow and petty elements in 
humanity, and freeing him completely from the ordinary selfish 
interests and aims of everyday life. There is scarcely any thinker 



BREAKING-UP OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 455 

who has done so much as Kant to raise man's spiritual level, no 
one who has done more to increase reverence for human nature 
and place man's centre of gravity within himself. Moreover, no 
one since the great days of old has so clearly depicted the 
destructive tendencies of a pursuit of mere utility as the thinker 
who is responsible for the saying: "Everything, even that which 
is most sublime, becomes small in the hands of men, so soon as 
they turn the idea of it to their profit." If, however, Kant has 
so deepened the significance of man, put the most elemental 
facts in a new light, and at the same time changed our funda- 
mental relations to reality in such fruitful ways — -then he was 
certainly a productive force in the spiritual world, a truly great 
thinker with an inexhaustible wealth of influence, the initiator 
of a new era in philosophy. 

But it is just where any intellectual achievement is greatest 
that its most knotty problems usually lie; and Kant's adoption 
of the subjective stand-point, the increased emphasis he lays on 
the subject, stirs up various questions, each of which affects the 
whole universe of thought. With regard to the subject, it is 
impossible to allow that it has an independent sphere of opera- 
tion, without making it very much more than the mere indi- 
vidual of immediate experience; but exactly what it is that dif- 
ferentiates it from this individual, what it is that gives to its 
activities a universal validity, Kant does not clearly show. The 
inner world cannot be the creation and possession of the merely 
isolated individual, and yet we do not see how it can be anything 
more. Further difficulties are involved in the sharp distinction 
drawn between theoretical and practical reason, scientific thought 
and moral action, as also in the fundamentally different rela- 
tionship to the world which obtains in these different spheres. 
In the one domain, our mental activity is strictly limited to a 
world impervious to the reason ; and, as the result of such limi- 
tation, the truth it enjoys cannot have any validity outside the 
human sphere. In the other, the mind is to produce a world 
from its own resources, a world which has no touch of human 
idiosyncrasy, a kingdom of absolute truth. In the one sphere, 



456 THE MODERN WORLD 

our activity has a world standing over against it; in the other, 
itself is the deepest and most ultimate expression of the world. 
If our life can be thus partitioned out into dependent and inde- 
pendent activity, then do we not feel that on the one hand man 
is unduly depreciated and that the idea of a truth valid only for 
him is a contradiction in itself, whilst on the other hand, he is 
unduly exalted, and his power to construct a moral world over- 
estimated? The one sphere demands of him the most cautious 
reserve and profoundest resignation, while the other lifts him 
to the consciousness of a transcendent grandeur and dignity. 
But can both these moods dwell permanently together in the 
same soul ? Will not the one conquer and make away with the 
other ? The division, moreover, has the further disadvantage of 
not giving a satisfactory unity to the new way of thought, thereby 
depriving it of its greatest strength. If its contentions can be 
dealt with separately, they are far more likely to give way before 
doubt and opposition. Moreover, if the soul's function is purely 
formal, how can we attain to an independent world, a self-con- 
tained life ? That such a world can be won in the sphere of the 
practical reason seems to be due solely to the fact that here Kant 
introduces the more concrete conception of personality, a concep- 
tion which goes far beyond that of mere form and opens up an 
essentially deeper world of experience. But even when supple- 
mented in this way, Kant's morality is still far too much a moral- 
ity of law, though it be an inward law. Mere morals have far too 
much space allotted to them. Finally, in close connection with 
the distinction between form and matter — and in the strong em- 
phasis he lays on this, Kant is far nearer to the ancients than to 
the moderns — is the treatment of the part played by the soul as 
in all essentials stereotyped and unchangeable. The basal struc- 
ture of the mind is presented as perfect from the outset, and as 
operating in a uniform manner. Thus there is no recognition 
of the fact that man has to work his way into what is funda- 
mental in his nature through hard toil and much experience; 
the genetic aspect of these ultimate questions is not given its just 
due which yet can scarcely be denied to it in the light of the 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 457 

experiences of the nineteenth century. Lastly, there is a question 
which here we can do no more than indicate : if this freedom, 
Kant's most important doctrine, is really to bring forth a new 
world, must there not be something more behind it? Does not 
the new form require a new content ? 

The upshot of the whole matter is that we can only regard 
Kant's work as a first and not as a final step. To pin our faith 
to the actual words of the master seems in this case to be more 
than usually perverse. The old Kantians, like Fichte, who in 
their zeal went far beyond Kant himself, were better justified 
than many moderns who erect criticism into a dogma, and would 
fain keep all thought and all life in bondage to it for ever. 
"Back to Kant" is an excellent motto when it means that from 
our manifold confusions we must climb with him into the clearer 
air of a world-historic movement and gain direction from him 
as to our own task. But if we are bidden cleave to all the cum- 
bersome machinery and learned scholasticism of the Kantian 
system, if we are bidden deny that the rich and versatile nine- 
teenth century has made any contribution to the ultimate ques- 
tions of truth, if we are told to rivet on our own age, with its 
seething ferment and unrest, the forms and formulas of the 
past — and whether the past be nearer or more remote does not 
alter the impropriety of the dependence — then we say No ! and 
again No! and to the challenge "Back to Kant!" insistently 
reply "Away from Kant!" "Beyond Kant!" 

(b) The German Humanistic Movement and Its Ideal oj Life 

(a) GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 

The Golden Age of German literature, culminating in Goethe, 
though it presents every variety of personality and production, 
has yet a common stock of fundamental convictions. Implicit 
in all its creations are certain peculiar views of life and the 
world, and its poetry is directly interwoven with reflection on 
weighty problems. 

This literary movement presents itself first and foremost as 



458 THE MODERN WORLD 

a movement of opposition to the Enlightenment, completely 
transcending its point of view, the point of view at least which 
it had eventually adopted. Instead of resorting to discussions 
which appeal merely to the understanding, it seeks to grasp and 
rejuvenate man's nature as a whole; in opposition to utilitarian 
ideals, it claims that action has a value of its own; as against 
the practical and ethical interpretation of life, it upholds the 
universal interpretation of art; instead of placing a gulf between 
world and man, it craves union with the universe. By the aid 
of art man passes beyond the purposes and necessities of a 
narrow provincial world to a new reality, a kingdom that is 
shaped from within, a world where all is pure and beautiful. 
And the peculiar condition of German society plainly indicated 
this as the only course open to the younger generation. For 
political and social life, with its factions, its pettiness, its mean- 
ness, could offer no attractions to noble minds. In the Germany 
of that age, there was, as Mme. von Stael so aptly put it, "nothing 
to do save for him whose concern was with the universe." Thus 
the best power of the nation was diverted to the channels of 
thought and literature. These were not to furnish a mere em- 
broidery to life, but to open up a new life, a life of man purely 
as man, a life in the depths of the soul, removed from all the 
limitations and sordidness of external conditions. To be man 
— with the freedom this implies — becomes an ideal and the 
highest of all ideals. 

For the attainment of such an ideal we must rely chiefly upon 
art, especially literary art. And the reason is that art alone 
can free itself from the dead weight of matter under which we 
otherwise lie crushed. It is in the realm of the beautiful that 
struggling form first wins its way to complete self-expression, 
and the diversity of life is gathered into a living unity. It is art 
that first makes of man a spiritual organism, a coherent whole, 
and brings all his powers into complete harmony. It is when 
we are thus brought to realise the creative power of art within 
our own experience that a new world dawns, a reality which, 
though invisible, is immediately present to us. We realise that 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 459 

our life proceeds on two different levels. We separate clearly 
between the externalities of life with their canons of necessity 
and utility, and the realm of the beautiful with its noble culture — 
between the worldly wisdom of the understanding and the 
creative power of reason — between mere civilisation as "the 
peaceful ordering of outward existence" (F. A. Wolf), and the 
genuine culture of spiritual life. 

Now, if literature, with its interfusion of thought and art, 
helps to emphasise and establish this higher level of existence, 
then it is easy to see how it may become the very centre of life 
and attract man's best energy and devotion. 

Moreover, the distinguished position assigned to man in no 
way severs him from his connection with the universe. For it 
is one and the same life, one and the same fundamental law, 
which embraces alike man and nature. Everywhere it is the 
inward powers that prevail, that take shape and form, and work 
together to produce a whole. But in nature the process takes 
place unconsciously; it is subject to a law of necessity and con- 
ditioned by the growth of mysterious powers and impulses. It 
is in man first that the vital process becomes clear, self-conscious 
and free. "Nature is limited to the inferior part of a compul- 
sory fulfilment of Reason, but the kingdom of the Spirit is the 
kingdom of Freedom" (Hegel). And if this explains how the 
life of the world first becomes self-conscious and realises its own 
truth, it explains no less how man is at once closely linked to the 
whole universe and yet exalted above the other parts of it. His 
liberation, however, requires the help of beauty as the twin- 
sister of truth. Beauty does not entice us into a foreign realm, 
but discloses to us the intimate and inmost nature of reality. 

This many-sided culture, rooted deep in man's own nature, 
necessarily pervades the whole of life, filling every part of it with 
the spirit of truth and beauty. Schleiermacher shows its effect 
on religion; Pestalozzi and F. A. Wolf its bearing upon educa- 
tion. The primary function of education is not to minister to 
the purposes of social intercourse, but to develop and complete 
man's spiritual nature and secure the even cultivation of all his 



460 THE MODERN WORLD 

powers. The educator must not be dictatorial, but must be 
content to assist the workings of the pupil's own mind and lend 
a hand where needed. Again, it is only in the light of the spir- 
itual and artistic temper of the time that the task undertaken by 
speculative philosophy, that, namely, of understanding the world 
from within, becomes really intelligible. 

In comparison with the realisation of this spiritual culture, 
the more ordinary concerns of life seem of secondary or no im- 
portance. Among these are to be reckoned all political interests, 
more especially matters of foreign policy. These may be left to 
look after themselves. Why should a man "embroil himself in 
the quarrels of kings" (Goethe)? 

" Fur Regen und Tau und furs Wohl der Menschengeschlechter 
Lass du den Himmel, Freund, sorgen wie gestern so heut." ' 

— Schiller. 

The State appears as something inhuman, a vast machine, 
a soulless contrivance, keeping both culture and individuality 
from their due. All real progress in the purely human sphere 
will come, not from the State and its organisation, but from the 
initiative of great personalities. It is in the light of such con- 
victions that Wilhelm von Humboldt undertakes an inquiry 
into the "limits of state-efficiency," that Fichte, in one of his 
earlier writings, lays it down as the aim of all government "to 
make government superfluous," and that Friedrich Schlegel 
warns us "not to lavish our faith and love on politics, but to 
dedicate ourselves to the divine world of science and art, laying 
our life upon the sacred altar of an imperishable culture." 

This absorption in what was essentially human brought with 
it a sense of superiority to all international feuds and rivalries. 
Even a man like Fichte, who later did so much to arouse the 
spirit of German patriotism, declares, on the eve of the Prussian 
defeat at Jena, that the Fatherland of the truly cultivated Euro- 
pean is, broadly speaking, Europe, and, more particularly, that 

" For rain and dew and the weal of the sons of men 
Let Heaven take thought, my friend, as in days agone." 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 461 

State which, in any particular epoch, is pre-eminent in culture"; 
and he adds: "With this cosmopolitan spirit we can afford to 
be perfectly untroubled about the fate of the different states." 
Goethe's indifference to movements for national independence 
is matter of common knowledge. It must have been a very poor 
comprehension of the moving forces of political life which could 
allow him to say in the year 181 2, at the very time when Ger- 
many was preparing to throw off the French yoke — that Prussia 
was a State which it was "past all power to save." In the most 
perilous crisis of her history, Germany found her greatest poet 
indifferent to her national fate. 

We do not desire to condone this defect; but it is, after all, 
only the weaker side of the distinctive virtue of this period : its 
unwearied labour in promoting the spiritual culture of man as 
man. It was this very indifference which made it possible, amid 
upheaval and revolution, to keep a stable equilibrium, and to 
pursue all undisturbed the work of literary creation as a kind of 
religious service in the temple of Beauty and Truth. 

This concentration of effort upon spiritual culture gives a 
central importance to the individual. Each individual, to bor- 
row Schiller's expression, is at once "fitted and destined for a 
pure ideal manhood." The attainment of this ideal requires 
from us the most zealous self-cultivation, a clear understanding 
of our own strong points, and a concentration of effort upon our 
own peculiar gifts. But when once, through self-examination 
and self-knowledge, we have ascertained what these are, then 
we may — nay, must — trust confidently to our own genius, and 
not try and adjust ourselves to the dead level of any social envi- 
ronment. As far as possible, the individual must put his own 
individuality into every phase of life. This emphasising of indi- 
viduality results in a strong aversion, not only for all conven- 
tional forms, but also for all method that makes for restriction 
and uniformity. This is why F. A. Wolf distrusts educational 
technique and lets all advice to the teacher culminate in the 
requirement to have intelligence and evoke it. The age did 
really, as a matter of fact, produce a remarkable number of 



462 THE MODERN WORLD 

striking personalities, who, even down to details of language 
and style, substantially recast their environment in a distinctive 
and original manner. 

The social relationships of the period show the same indi- 
vidualistic tendency. In the interchange of intellectual confi- 
dences and spiritual experiences, there grow up the closest 
friendships, and the expressions of one's deepest convictions in 
letters to friends is recognised as a part, and not the least im- 
portant part, of the serious business of life. Again, outside this 
circle of friends, there grows up a cultured society, a community 
of those who, though not themselves creative artists and lead- 
ers of thought, yet by receiving and spreading the ideas of such, 
contribute to the establishment of the new order. Within this 
intellectual sphere there is an understood agreement in the 
valuation of enjoyments, in the principles of judgment, in the 
canons of taste. It is a resurrection of the social culture of the 
Renaissance, but in a quieter, less turbulent, more inward form. 

All that this cultured circle does is inspired by a courageous and 
joyful outlook on the world and life. Not that there is any sub- 
scribing to a comfortable optimism, which smooths away all 
problems from the outset. The problems are deeply realised 
and life is seen to be full of difficult tasks. The optimism lies in 
this, that our mental force is deemed equal to the tasks, and the 
shock of collision is felt as taxing our capacity to the utmost, 
but not as barring or stultifying our effort. It is impossible to 
place any high value on mental work, unless we believe that it 
has a cosmic setting, and that behind human undertakings there 
is the support of a Divine Power. Thus religious conviction is 
looked upon with no disfavour, but it is rather an admission of 
infinity into man's finite life, an acknowledgment of an unseen 
order of things, than a movement toward a new world not to be 
gained save through shock and revolution. There is much 
closer kinship to Panentheism, the creed of the noblest minds of 
the Renaissance, than to the distinctively Christian view which 
these men incline to look upon as a mere refuge for the weak 
and sickly. Religion for them is rather an invisible Presence 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 463 

which attends their work than a specific form of spiritual experi- 
ence. The breadth and freedom of their temper is in some danger 
of evaporating into a flimsy sentimentality. On the question of 
immortality they are inclined to take up an affirmative position. 
Their creative work renders them so conscious of their supe- 
riority to mere time-limitations, gives them such a feeling of being 
possessed by a Power which cannot perish, that they find it im- 
possible to admit the entire reversion of man to nature, or to 
hold that death implies the complete extinction of the spiritual 
life. Nevertheless, it is mainly in this life that they realise their 
immortality, and it is by virtue of this realisation that they oppose 
to the familiar Memento mori a "Remember to live!" 

" So lost sich jene grosse Frage 
Nach unserm zweiten Vaterland, 
Denn das Bestandige der ird'schen Tage 
Verbiirgt uns ewigen Bestand." 1 

The danger, no less than the greatness, of this German Hu- 
manism, is clear enough: the danger of aristocratic exclusive- 
ness, reluctance to face the forces of evil and darkness in the 
world at large, lack of strength, robustness, firmness of char- 
acter. For such defects, however, the peculiar circumstances of 
the age are largely responsible, and in any case we can rejoice 
unreservedly in the advantages which have accrued to humanity 
from the work of these poets and thinkers. For with wonderful 
strength and tenderness they have deepened the self-conscious- 
ness of life, rejuvenated and ennobled the whole expanse of 
being, thought out man's most intimate relations to himself, 
his companions, and his natural environment. They had so 
fine a perception of what was essential to life, and expressed 
themselves with such simplicity and dignity of style, that their 
work, taken as a whole, ranks among humanity's best and 
priceless possessions. Moreover, the spiritual force of this 

1 " Discovered lies the land of our rebirth, 
A world of rest within this world of strife; 
The steadfastness that bears the life of earth 
Reveals already the immortal life." 



464 THE MODERN WORLD 

small band of workers showed itself quite capable of strong 
action in the outer world as soon as there was occasion for it. 
It was, indeed, mainly from the ranks of these seemingly vision- 
ary dreamers that those men came forward, though not without 
much heart-searching and division, who, after the swift Disrup- 
tion, mustered strength, courage and skill sufficient to lift their 
country up again and shape its destinies anew. Napoleon him- 
self, the Arch-Realist, ascribed his downfall not primarily to the 
diplomacy of statecraft or the power of the bayonet, but to the 
resistance of the German Ideologists (Ideologeri). And Germany 
would never have been capable in the nineteenth century of such 
great achievements in the practical world, had not the quiet 
work of its poets and thinkers in the world of thought put at its 
disposal the resources and the educative influence of their vast 
treasure-house of inspiration. 

(/3) GOETHE 

Goethe, though closely connected with the general movement 
of German Humanism, is yet far too distinct an individuality 
and too far above the average of the movement not to require 
a separate treatment. In such a treatment we must from the 
outset bear two things in mind. Goethe's philosophy of life, no 
less than his art as a whole, is not to be taken as a doctrine or 
teaching of universal application, but rather as a personal reve- 
lation. It is just the expression of a highly characteristic indi- 
viduality and is only completely true in reference to this individ- 
uality. And since in Goethe we are dealing with such a thor- 
oughly individual character, we must never take his doctrine and 
work as supplying norms and rules for the majority of mankind. 

Moreover, considerable misunderstanding is caused by a 
failure to recognise the deep seriousness of Goethe's life-work 
and the inner development which it underwent. He does not 
admit us into his confidence till his experiences have been cast, 
with marvellous artistic skill, into the clearest possible form. 
And the result is that we tend to look upon it all as an easy gift 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 465 

of fortune, a merely natural process of evolution, instead of 
recognising its real origin in the reaction of his intellectual and 
moral nature. 

For Goethe the secret of life lies in the relationship of man to 
the universe. Our life has its source in the universe and our 
nature develops through interchange of activities with the uni- 
verse. Goethe has the most pronounced aversion to dwelling 
among the trivialities of life or imprisoning himself in a web of 
conventional relations. Such a course seems to him to involve 
not merely limitation but a falling from truth, since truth can 
be realised only through a vital interchange with the universe. 
This bias toward breadth and greatness brings Goethe very close 
to Spinoza. In his longing for emancipation from human little- 
ness and readiness to yield all to the Infinite, Goethe feels him- 
self to be Spinoza's pupil. But a closer scrutiny reveals a great 
difference between the two men. Spinoza as far as possible 
absorbs man into the universe and would fain preserve reality 
from every anthropomorphic defacement. With Goethe, man 
is more independent. It is true that his nature can only develop 
through contact with the universe, but he has some inward con- 
tribution of his own to make which enables him to react upon 
the influences that reach him from without. Life is not a mere 
passive appropriation of the world: to the world and its intru- 
sion it opposes a defensive resistance, and in this way becomes 
more alive to the joy of action than was consistent with the 
more severe conceptions of Spinoza. 

With Goethe, the influence of the world in giving clearness 
and shape to man's character causes him to regard it as itself 
ensouled. The whole environment becomes inwardly alive and 
akin to us. An intimate exchange of relations arises in which 
the world unlocks to man its once sealed nature and acquaints 
him with its inmost life and work. This is primarily an artistic 
view of life, which regards even natural science as only great 
and distinctive in so far as it is dominated by the artistic im- 
pulse. Its closest historical affinities are with classical antiquity. 
It is, above all, a revival of Platonism with its union of soul and 



466 THE MODERN WORLD 

world, though the Platonism appears in a fresh garb, trans- 
formed no less by modern conditions than by Goethe's unique 
personality. If, from his period of storm and stress, he turned 
to Greece for refuge, this was not a surrender but a reassertion of 
his innermost nature. We may add that his attempt to assimi- 
late this foreign influence was only approximately successful. 

Since soul and world are thus closely linked together in life's 
process, it is natural that the world should express on a larger 
scale the experiences of the individual. Now Goethe does not 
mean by the world some vague problematic abstraction, but a 
fact which carries with it its own explanation. It encircles us 
with powers transcending our own, and yet does not crush us. 
Our work is to understand and appropriate this reality, but we 
must not seek to change it, to assign to it an origin external to 
itself, or go beyond it for an explanation. Thus reality appears 
primarily as nature, and we must conceive life as determined 
before we can think of it as free. We must not seek to get be- 
hind the things whose nature we are studying; we must not 
look for something beyond phenomena; but must rather work 
our way into them till we reach primitive phenomena, which 
explain themselves and ought, therefore, to suffice us. "Theory 
is nothing in and for itself, except m so far as it induces a belief 
in the systematic character of fact." "We must not seek any- 
thing behind phenomena: the facts themselves are the theory." 
Thus there is a rejection of all "transcendental philosophy," an 
aversion to all destructive analysis, a vigorous attempt to grasp 
the world about us as a whole. 

Life, no less than scientific investigation, is confined within 
impassable barriers. All man's activity rests upon a given 
natural order; his work can only succeed when it strikes out in 
the direction prescribed by nature; it becomes empty and 
artificial if it tries to sever its connections or to act in opposition 
to nature. "Let man turn whither he will, undertake no matter 
what; he will ever come back again to that path which nature 
has mapped out for him." Our nature, however, does not 
evolve of itself apart from our activity; it is not so clearly dis- 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 467 

cernible that there is no chance of mistaking it. It must first of 
all be found and won. So our fate becomes a task for our own 
achievement. How difficult Goethe found it, with all his talents, 
to ascertain clearly the bent of his own nature, how it was only 
after much agitation and painful uncertainty that he came to 
any definite conclusion as to his real bias, we know; and we 
know, too, that his belief in nature as immanent in man is far from 
inducing an indolent quiescence or implying an easy and com- 
fortable ordering of life. But the existence of such a nature 
certainly does place a fixed limit to the restlessness of our move- 
ments. We seek and in seeking are already pressing back to 
the starting-point; however keen our activity, life is yet free 
from violent shock, abrupt transition and drastic innovation. 
Through all change there runs a vein of permanence: no 
amount of fluctuation can imperil the primitive basis of nature. 
Thus, even in the chequered fortunes of mankind, Goethe 
sought to trace and to promote continuity. A foe to revolution, 
he would fain link all action closely to precedent and develop 
existing tendencies in a spirit of peaceful progress. 

Goethe's poetic manner is in complete accord with his own 
personal feeling. His heroes experience no inward development 
through conflict with their environment; amid all change of 
circumstance they preserve their original nature. The change 
gives them constant opportunities of disclosing new aspects of 
this nature and working it out more forcefully, but they are not 
inwardly transformed by any sudden revelation of unsuspected 
possibilities. Their final salvation usually comes through a 
return to their true nature which has only been obscured by 
temptation and error. Through their lack of an inward history 
Goethe's heroes are not really dramatic characters, though they 
are certainly endowed with marvellous vitality and are perfectly 
individual and distinctive creations. This, too, would explain why 
he has created so many splendid women and so few genuine men. 

If the nature of which Goethe makes man the offshoot is thus 
given and unchangeable, then it must be mainly the constitution 
of this nature which determines the character of our life. Now 



4 68 THE MODERN WORLD 

in the first place, nature is no mere juxtaposition of phenomena, 
but a spiritual whole. As an invisible nexus of relations she 
encircles and animates all the diversity of the visible world. 
This brings us to the thought of an All-pervading Deity. On 
this point, Goethe went through various stages from a Pantheism 
tinged with Naturalism to an approximation to Theism; but 
throughout he was consistent in apprehending the Divine as in 
intimate union with the world rather than in opposition to it, 
in seeing Nature in God and God in Nature. God does not act 
upon things from an external stand-point, but he works from 
within their own being, and they do not attain to fulness of 
being until they become part of the Universal Life. 

This sense of being rooted in a universal life not only gives 
to the individual existence a glad confidence and reposeful 
security, it at the same time engenders a feeling of organic unity 
with all other beings. Herein lies the force and justice of 
Goethe's love for everything living and especially for human 
nature, for the Divine Immanence leads us to recognise every- 
where the germ of something precious and imperishable, and 
not to be shaken in the value we attach to it by all the world's 
need and guilt. "God is always meeting Himself; God in man 
meets Himself again in man. Therefore no one has any reason 
to disparage himself even in comparison with the greatest." It- 
is a peculiar merit of Goethe's that, however much he may be 
repelled by universal, abstract creeds, he is yet able to see and 
recognise God in every place, and to reverence Him with glad- 
ness wherever and however He reveal Himself, in nature as in 
man. 

This, indeed, is Goethe's central conviction, that the Universal 
Life does not swallow up manifoldness nor extinguish differ- 
ences, but that it is the only means of bringing to its full devel- 
opment the detailed content of reality; in particular, that it does 
not attempt to abolish the great oppositions of life and world, 
but takes them up into Itself and brings them into fruitful rela- 
tions to each other. If it be true that nothing stamps a philoso- 
pher more surely than his attitude toward these oppositions, 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 469 

then it is natural that Goethe's distinctive individuality should 
here find particularly clear expression. And the surmise is 
verified. One opposition, however, does not suffice for him. 
The world is rich enough to supply him with a whole series of 
oppositions. One member does not dominate and crush the 
other; the different aspects are far enough apart for each to 
develop fully its peculiar nature, and at the same time suffi- 
ciently near in the all-embracing unity of life to be able to act 
most effectively on each other. By thus transforming existence 
into a tissue of opposites which stand out clearly and boldly 
against each other, while yet there exists between them a mutual 
attraction and a vital sympathy, Goethe builds up a wonderfully 
balanced system of movements and counter-movements, spirit- 
ualises, clarifies, ennobles our whole existence, gathers all life, 
nay, more, all reality, into one great artistic synthesis. 

The individual has his place within the whole, whence he 
draws his individual life: but this life he models in a way pecu- 
liar to himself, and so has a truth proper to himself. Each has 
first to create his own world from the world as given. But since 
all manifoldness is difference within a unity, the individual 
spheres do not fall asunder. "Each can have his own truth, 
and yet truth remains ever the same." While each individual 
has a particular mode of development, yet he is also an expres- 
sion and symbol of that which is most universal. When we are 
striving for our own individual development, we are at the same 
time laying hold upon Infinity. 

" Du sehnst dich weit hinaus zu wandem, 
Bereitest dich zu raschem Flug. 
Dir selbst sei treu und treu den andern; 
Dann ist die Enge weit genug." ' 

Thus freedom and necessity find their reconciliation. We 
are all subject to eternal, immutable laws, which suffer no resist- 

1 " Why seek to cleave the distant blue, 
Or let far fields thy steps entice? 
Be to thyself and others true, 
So narrow ways all needs suffice." 



470 THE MODERN WORLD 

ance. Throughout the whole of nature's work there are fixed 
types which dominate all the variety of life. Yet, rigid though 
nature's laws may be, they allow scope for individual culture 
and personal action. "Our life, like that whole of which we 
are a part, is a mysterious blending of freedom and necessity." 
Power and limitation, caprice and law, freedom and measure, 
are constantly seeking and finding a mutual adjustment. 

There is no rigid antithesis between time and eternity; but 
the Eternal, the Imperishable, which contains all life within 
itself, is manifest in time, altering its fashion from moment to 
moment so as always to preserve its unique character. We must 
lay hold of it in its present immediacy, treat the moment as 
representative of eternity. Not that we should hurry on greedily 
from one moment to another; our existence loses all meaning 
and value if one day is simply the progenitor of the next, and 
each instant swallows up its predecessor. Amid all our untiring 
activity we should have assurance and repose. While awake to 
the claims of the living present, we should feel that we are spir- 
itually akin to the great souls of every age. 

" Die Wahrheit war schon langst gefunden, 
Hat edle Geisterschaft verbunden; 
Das alte Wahre, fass' es an! " ' 

No antithesis is for Goethe more important and no recon- 
ciliation more fruitful than that of Inner and Outer. Though 
the dominant tendency of the age was to construct only from 
within, yet Goethe attributes far more independence and value 
to external factors. It is only through the combination of inter- 
nal with external factors that life and creative activity become 
really productive. Inner and Outer mutually imply each other; 
it is in the Outer that the Inner first finds form and expression, 
and the Outer only reveals its real nature in so far as it is spir- 
itually appropriated. It is their mutual contact and interpene- 
tration that produce forms instinct with life and energy. This 

1 " Truth is old, an ancient bond 
Of brotherhood for noble souls. 
The old truth, — cleave to that, my friend!" 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 471 

experience of his artistic nature became for Goethe an intimate 
necessity of his being. In the interaction of Inner and Outer he 
found a focus for all his creative energies and a clue to all his 
problems. Everything that gave him joy or pain or otherwise 
preoccupied him he must needs make into a picture, a poem. 
This detachment of the emotional element and its embodiment 
in literary form gave peace to his mind and complete satisfac- 
tion. These intimate self-revelations contained in his artistic 
work we can scarcely look upon as a moral unburdening. But 
they were undoubtedly a most essential element in giving to 
Goethe's work the grand sincerity and marvellous simplicity 
which mark him out from all other writers and well entitle him 
to say of himself : 

" Teilen kann ich nicht das Leben, 
Nicht das Innen noch das Aussen, 
Allen muss das Ganze geben, 
Um mit euch und mir zu hausen. 
Immer hab' ich nur geschrieben 
Wie ich fiihle, wie ich's meine, 
Und so spalt' ich mich, ihr Lieben, 
Und bin immerfort der Eine." ' 

This is very closely connected with the objectivity of thought 
and creation, which is perhaps what we admire most of all in 
Goethe. This objectivity is no mere counterfeiting of some 
outside object, but the object is transplanted into the soil of the 
mind where it develops an inner life, in virtue of which it is able 
to reveal its own nature and make its appeal to the conscious- 
ness of men. Thus it is not that a subjective mood is imposed 
upon things, but that their own mood is either stolen or wrested 
from them; to the poet's soul their innermost nature is disclosed. 

1 " Whole my life must ever be, 
Inwardly and outwardly. 
To each of you I give it free, 
To dwell with you as erst with me. 
Ever true has been mine art, 
True to thought and feeling's claim; 
Though in twain myself I part, 
I yet am evermore the same." 



472 THE MODERN WORLD 

The poet appears as a magician who, in his journeyings through 
nature, makes the once dumb beings speak, to whose spiritual 
perception the whole vast world reveals itself, who discloses to 
each thing the native depths of its own being and detects in each 
its vital, essential, effective elements. This inner quickening of 
reality allows of no opposition between man and world, suffers 
no chasm between being and appearance, but the ultimate 
deeps of existence open before it, as it gathers into one great 
synthesis world and spirit — a synthesis "which gives us the 
most blessed assurance of the eternal harmony of existence." 
Thus there is good ground for the poet's conviction : 

" Natur hat weder Kern noch Schale, 
Alles ist sie zu einem Male," l 
and 

" Wir denken, Ort fur Ort 
Sind wir im Innern." 2 

Such a conviction does, indeed, distinguish between the 
truth of art and the reality of nature, but the new reality built 
up by art does not cut itself loose from things; rather, it con- 
stitutes their innermost, essential nature, to which we can win 
only through a deepening of first impressions. Since, according 
to this conception, art is everywhere extricating the pure form, 
the central reality, from that which conceals and disfigures it, 
it is able to penetrate the whole of life and disclose to it its own 
true nature. 

It is precisely because Goethe regards art in this way as the 
soul of life that he never brings art into collision with morality, 
or upholds an aesthetic culture and philosophy at the cost of the 
ethical. It is true that art should be independent and that the 
culture which art gives should follow its own free course. 
Neither poets nor any other human beings are to have their 
freedom fettered by "conventional morals" or by "pedantry 

1 " Nor husk nor kernel Nature hath, 

Everything at once is she." 
a <; We think, and are ourselves the space 

Where our mind travels." 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 473 

and prejudice." But, like all great artists, Goethe cannot hold 
artistic work in such high esteem as to find in it the very soul of 
his life, without at the same time seeing its ethical aspect and 
making ethical and artistic culture mutually complementary. 
In any work of art it is always the truth and nothing but the 
truth which is held worthy of honour. The demons of self- 
conceit, hypocrisy and factiousness must be banished from its 
precincts. Thus creative art itself assumes a moral character. 
And what is true of individual works of art is equally true of 
life as a whole. Inasmuch as it has the power to draw out clearly 
and forcibly all the active possibilities of a man's nature, to 
develop his distinctive individuality and rate his capacity at its 
true value — it is in itself the greatest of all works of art. But 
this vital shaping of the individual demands so much self- 
knowledge, self-limitation, self-conquest, such a spirit of resig- 
nation and submission, that we cannot fail to discern in it also 
a moral task of the most strenuous kind. 

Finally, it is through creative art that man comes to realise 
personally his membership of a divine and universal Order and 
to be penetrated and dominated by the realisation. The work 
of art requires a religious disposition, since it demands a pure 
and innocent contemplation of the object amounting even to an 
actual reverence for it. "He who will not begin with wonder 
and admiration will never find entrance into the Holy of Holies." 
For his discoveries, his syntheses, his happy inspirations, the 
artist has to thank not his own reflections but a Superior Power. 
On the pile of wood heaped up with care and toil, the lightning 
from above must descend if the flame is to leap up clear and 
bright. All real success comes in this way. Let it be received 
joyfully and gratefully honoured as a gift of grace. In truth, 
a mood of joyful gratitude pervades all Goethe's life and work. 
And with it goes a firm trust in a Reason at the heart of things, 
a faith born of confidence in a great, mighty and inscrutable 
Being, and felt as a strong sense of security against all present 
and future emergencies. This is the source whence springs that 
sentiment "which none brings with him into the world, but on 



474 THE MODERN WORLD 

which it entirely depends whether or not a man shall be in all 
respects a man" — the sentiment of reverence. 

This final note brings Goethe's philosophy of life back again 
to its starting-point; for it will be remembered that it was just 
this intimacy with the great Universal Life that gave the key- 
note to his whole system. But, in the interval, what rich and 
varied forms has life assumed! What new depths of reality 
have been sounded! There has been no sharp break with the 
world of immediacy, and yet existence has been purified, enno- 
bled, brought back to its true centre. It is the crowning great- 
ness of Goethe's genius that with a perfectly open and free mind 
he gathered in all the rich variety of being and doing, and with 
quiet but strong hand stripped off the husk of sham, convention 
and prejudice, so as to bring to full maturing all that was true, 
vital and genuinely human. Life is purified and exalted. From 
seeming we turn to being. Reality is invested with a new spir- 
itual dignity. Possessions which humanity has owned from 
time immemorial become new and effective as ever, while all the 
spurious growths that have clung around them fall away and 
allow their true nature to appear. And with this added pro- 
fundity, life also gains an inward freedom, a capacity to work 
from within. It is this inward freedom that Goethe regarded as 
the fountain-head of his creative activity, an inexhaustible 
source of life welling up for man's refreshment. Who can gain- 
say him when he says: "The man who has learnt to understand 
my writings and my general mode of thought will have to admit 
that he has won a certain inward freedom." 

(7) SCHILLER 

Schiller's view of life has not the breadth, the independence, 
the wealth of experience, which characterise Goethe's; but it is 
noteworthy for its vigorous concentration. Though surrounded 
by illustrious friends, Schiller strikes out an original line of his 
own and pursues it with extraordinary force and intensity. In 
the literary circle of his age he is before all else the man of 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 475 

action and of deeds. It is this character which, stamped as it is 
on all his work, makes him by far the greatest German drama- 
tist, lends to his scientific expositions a well-knit structure, a 
power of antithesis, a dramatic movement — and, finally, directs 
his philosophical thought mainly to ethical problems, making 
him an enthusiastic supporter of Kant's doctrine of freedom. 
He is in close and complete sympathy with Kant's exaltation of 
man above the mechanical system of nature, with his manner 
of arousing him to a proud consciousness of membership in an 
Unseen Order. And since, in the passionate soul of the poet, 
the Kantian ideas put off their scholastic garb and step close to 
the immediacy of feeling, they reveal to the full their emanci- 
pating and elevating power. Kant's harsh severity is softened; 
a new joy is brought into our mood, a larger gladness into life, 
and yet there is no forfeiture of earnestness, nor any tendency to 
indulge in the trifling, into which at times even a Goethe could 
lapse. 

This earnestness, however, and this deep note of ethical con- 
viction are accompanied by an intense desire to fashion life 
artistically, and so bring the good into closest relation with the 
beautiful. The forms under which this rapprochement is 
attempted are indeed open to objection, and at different periods 
of his life Schiller gave a somewhat different rendering of the 
relation of the good to the beautiful: but both were always 
conceived on a grand scale, and it was always the whole life that 
was to profit by their union. The morally-good is never de- 
graded to a mere aggregate of isolated precepts, but always 
signifies a new manner of being, a translation into a new world. 
It is never a mere negation, but before everything else, a strong 
and glad assertion. The beautiful, on the other hand, as "free- 
dom in its phenomenal form," is anything but a mere occasional 
means of enjoyment. It effects a real ennoblement of life; it is 
an indispensable constituent of all true culture. If history in 
general is always showing the ethical and the artistic ideals as 
in dire opposition to each other, we have all the more reason to 
welcome as something great and remarkable Schiller's attempt 



476 THE MODERN WORLD 

not merely to reconcile them, but to prove them mutually indis- 
pensable allies. "The exalted purity of his moral outlook, in 
conjunction with the fullest recognition of the freedom of artistic 
endeavour, is the peculiarity — nay, more, the sole peculiarity — 
of Schiller's thought" (Kiihnemann). 

It would have been impossible for Schiller to transcend these 
oppositions, had he not entertained exalted notions of humanity 
and human nature, had he not been possessed with the idea of 
a spiritual culture leavening and uplifting our whole being. 
The belief of the age in man's greatness and dignity has nowhere 
found nobler expression than in Schiller. The thought of hu- 
manity gives a glow to all his conceptions and welds firmly to- 
gether all his varied effort. But Schiller, no less than Kant, is 
very far from any light-hearted idealisation of man as he is. It 
is rather the Idea of Reason — an idea which is indeed vitally 
operative in each individual — that first gives value to man. 
A fact of this kind is not merely a fact; it is something we must 
always be achieving. Man must first discover his own nature 
and struggle to realise it, summoning every faculty to the task. 
Schiller, moreover, has no idea of representing the average 
human lot as good, or even as tolerable. He describes the un- 
reason in nature and history with an almost harsh realism, 
closely bordering on a gloomy pessimism. If he never falls into 
this pessimism, but continues to preach joy in the face of all that 
is dark and gloomy, this is not because he has come to terms with 
the world, but because he has risen above it into an unseen realm 
of the reason in which the self is independent and superior to 
the world, where he can find realisations of good that make 
those of our world of immediacy dwindle by comparison into 
mere nothingness. It is this combination of happy trust with 
a full recognition of the irrationality of our immediate existence 
that gives to Schiller's thought such power to stir our emotion 
on the one hand, and steel us to endurance on the other. From 
his thought and life there breathes a heroic mood, an invincible 
youthfulness, a strong incentive to personal conflict and victory. 
Goethe could confess with gratitude that Schiller had called him 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 477 

back from a too exclusive contemplation of outward things and 
their relations to his inmost self, and made him young again. 
In like manner, Schiller has exercised an emancipating, uplift- 
ing, rejuvenating influence over the whole German nation, an 
influence which will grow and widen, despite all changes that 
time may bring. 

(S) THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT 

A detailed delineation of the Romantic movement lies outside 
the scope of our work. But its effect on life, no less than on 
philosophy, has been too significant to justify our passing it over 
in silence. Let us endeavour, then, as well as we can, to select 
from the motley crowd of personalities and the swift succession 
of historical phases a few characteristic features. 

A critical treatment of the Romantic movement is difficult, if 
only on account of its great complexity. In the first place, it is 
strongly subjective — the product of an age which can no longer 
strike a balance between the work done and the mind that does 
it, between object and subject, an age whose subjective tend- 
encies can no longer find satisfaction in the tasks which are 
commended to it. What other resource has it but to turn in- 
ward upon itself, severing itself as far as possible from outside 
things, and finding in its own development some prospect of 
at last giving meaning to life? But the mere adoption of the 
subjective stand-point is not sufficient to produce a romantic 
movement. In the sphere of religion, for instance, a mystic, 
emotional life might grow up which would have, at the most, 
only a few points in common with Romanticism. An essential 
element in Romanticism is the relation to art, the development 
of an artistic plan of life. The Subject, which would otherwise 
become a mere empty name, finds its task and its enjoyment in 
giving its subjectivity artistic expression, shaping personal expe- 
rience into a work of art, the enjoyment of which is, therefore, 
really self-enjoyment. This attempt is, from the outset, involved 
in a contradiction. For since man's spiritual life can only be 



478 THE MODERN WORLD 

developed in contact with the universe, it is impossible for him 
to abstract it from this and, starting from a merely individualistic 
centre, weave his inward states into a valuable work of art. 
No amount of talent or genius on the part of individuals can 
overcome this inner inconsistency and produce a great, pure, 
true artistic creation. But even movements that aim at the im- 
possible may have important results if they serve to elicit new 
powers: much of undoubted value has been reached in the 
course of striving after the unattainable. And thus Roman- 
ticism, in following after the mirage of a subjectivism made 
supreme through the help of art, did conspicuous service in 
intensifying the depth and susceptibility of man's spiritual 
nature, besides originating much fruitful work in other directions. 

Romanticism in Germany found a great artistic movement 
already in progress; but, by bringing the Subject into stronger 
relief, it made the new literary and philosophical life more self- 
conscious, definite and independent. All that savoured of 
idiosyncrasy in German Humanism was brought out and inten- 
sified till it became downright one-sidedness. Art — the word 
being applied chiefly to literary creation — now appears to be the 
only thing worth having in life. iEstheticism in theory and 
practice is preached with audacious exclusiveness. The alliance 
between art and morality is dissolved. The highly gifted indi- 
vidual scorns to be bound down by convention, and, in virtue 
of his artistic faculty and fine taste, believes himself infinitely 
superior to the rest of mankind. 

Thus all the doubtful elements of a purely artistic culture are 
brought out and emphasised. On the other hand, many advan- 
tages accrue from the heightened consciousness of the self and 
the increased freedom of movement. The Romanticists felt that 
they were the pioneers of a new era; they were the first to win 
full recognition for its peculiarities, and it was they who intro- 
duced the idea of "culture," which was new to Germany in this 
sense. They were even the first to dignify the term "culture" 
by using it to designate an intellectual state. They levelled 
their attack on the Enlightenment with a masterly cleverness 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 479 

and wit, which dealt a fatal blow to its popularity with the pub- 
lic. They raised literary reflection and criticism in Germany 
to a degree of eminence and power hitherto undreamt of. In 
all these respects they did indeed effect the introduction of a 
new mode of thought. 

In so far, however, as they undertook creative work along 
original lines, they were mainly absorbed with developing their 
subjective states and giving artistic shape to the vague in- 
definiteness of feeling. The objective element in the work 
became in the process the mere means or tool for showing up 
subjective capacity. The object had its sole raison d'etre in the 
service of self-feeling, while even this self-feeling consisted less 
in the feeling of actual impressions than in an endless brooding 
over feelings already experienced. Thus the Romanticists be- 
came more and more wedded to their own inner states; they 
wished to re-perceive their perceptions, re-enjoy their enjoy- 
ments. The reflection is reflected again and yet again, until 
all content and substance is thinned out of experience. Life is 
over-refined and over-etherealised ; retreating ever further and 
further into a shadowy background, it loses all its simplicity and 
haply its truth. 

But amid all these dangers and errors there is much that is 
fresh and valuable in the new order of life. The individual 
calls on his creative genius to assert its full sovereignty, bidding 
it exercise the fullest freedom in the choice both of form and 
material. The imagination scorns all fetters and barriers: at 
all costs it must escape from the everyday prose of life, and 
struggle out of its immediate environment into the vast world 
of the unknown, into a new realm full of marvel and magic. 
The poetry of legend grows up, a delight in mystery and ad- 
venture, in dawn, and dusk, and dreams. It even seems as 
though our world had points of contact with another loftier 
world of mysterious powers, a world inaccessible to sober reason, 
but making known its presence by hints and tokens. Thus 
our whole life assumes a symbolic character. In their essence, 
things are more and better than they seem. The unconscious 



480 THE MODERN WORLD 

is not considered as a lower stage, but as the primeval fount 
of life. This view is liable to take a morbid turn. It wel- 
comes with sympathy everything opposed to simplicity and 
naturalness. The more paradoxical the assertion, the more the 
picture is inverted, the more significant does it appear. For 
Novalis, Romanticism consists in giving a mysterious aspect to 
ordinary things, the dignity of the unknown to the known, an 
illusion of infinity to the finite. Still the longing to escape 
from a petty, everyday atmosphere — so natural in the German 
of that age of provincialism — opened man's eyes to new aspects 
of reality. It is the Romanticists who aroused a taste for the 
poetry of the forest and of moonlight, for the charm of historical, 
and particularly of patriotic, reminiscences. It is they who, by 
suffusing the natural and historical environment with their 
own emotion, brought it spiritually near to us. 

The opening up of new material went hand-in-hand with an 
increased range and nicety of expression. The Romanticists 
are mainly concerned with giving shape to their vague and 
fleeting moods, bringing them as much as possible into the 
foreground of consciousness, arresting them on the wing, as it 
were, reducing their chaos to form. This conception of the 
artistic function gives rise to much trifling and exaggeration. 
But the attempt to portray the immediacies of the soul's life 
had at least this good effect: it brought every power into play, 
with the result that a highly individual style was developed and 
the resources of expression were vastly increased. There is 
more softness and richness, soul and resonance; the language 
becomes more plastic and supple; the tone and rhythm gain 
swing and lilt; they are full of music and alight with colour. The 
most delicate feelings can be described with exquisite accuracy, 
particularly those intermediate shades of sentiment which tend 
to merge into each other. They are caught and fixed in all 
their vague fluctuation and floating uncertainty; and over all 
the creations of art a tender fragrance is diffused. On the 
other hand, there is a corresponding incapacity for bold design 
and systematic construction. There is a tendency toward the 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 481 

fragmentary and aphoristic; nor is there any desire to avoid it. 
Logical consistency indeed is looked on as an actual evil. This, 
therefore, was no soil for masterpieces of the highest order. 
And yet all the further developments of German literature, 
even the very revolt from Romanticism, took advantage of the 
greater wealth of expression which had resulted from its 
labours. 

The Romantic movement provokes the full strength of our 
opposition only when it takes that which has in art a certain 
justification and makes it fill and dominate life to the exclusion 
of everything else. It then becomes evident that the unfettered 
expansion of feeling is unable to give a satisfactory meaning to 
life; that the "infinitely free subjectivity" lacks steadiness and 
virile force: that the vain mirroring of self and love of abstrac- 
tion are a wearisome burden; and finally, that the contempt for 
morality, usually characteristic of this school, together with its 
incapacity to picture morality save in caricature, is merely a 
sign of its own shallowness. It becomes ever more and more 
obvious that this vague subjectivity lacks spiritual depth and 
that there is not much substance beneath all the shimmer and 
sparkle. As the movement develops, it is seen to be ever more 
slight and worthless, more and more involved in subtleties of 
barren sentiment. This is why some of its prominent repre- 
sentatives have had in the end to resort to external supports and 
submit to some form of ecclesiastical authority, not indeed 
without casting about it a halo of romance in ways quite foreign 
to the historical spirit. How was it possible for strong and up- 
right personalities to grow up in such an atmosphere ? 

It is, however, only the extreme type of Romanticism which 
has thus preyed upon itself. The movement also assumed a 
more moderate form in which it proved very fruitful and stimu- 
lating. The modification consists in this, that the subject does 
not maintain an attitude of direct opposition to things, but 
comes back to them, shares with them its own deepened spirit- 
uality, and thus endows them with a life of their own. It is true 
that even so the central emphasis still rests on the subject; 



482 THE MODERN WORLD 

things do not reveal their own soul, as Goethe held, but rather 
receive it as a loan from man. Still, the mere subjective mood 
does get some kind of counterpoise in things, while these again 
are grasped in a more living fashion and brought inwardly 
nearer to us. It is from this point of view in particular that 
history has gained such significance, history in its most various 
branches: the history of home and nationality, custom and law, 
language, art, and religion. The movement of history is through- 
out represented as charged with its own life, independent of all 
human reflection. A quiet process of growth is at work in it; 
great systems arise which embrace and unite all diverse elements 
after the manner of an organism. It is not for man to control 
and regulate historical results according to his own views; he 
must rather adjust himself to them and follow their lead. Law 
and State come to be conceived organically; the modern idea of 
nationality arises with its stimulating, quickening, and some- 
times dangerous power. The work of the individual is linked 
throughout with the work of his predecessors. We have indeed 
left the eighteenth century far behind ! But on closer inspection 
we cannot fail to be conscious of an inner inconsistency. The 
inward life, the organic connection which seem so independent 
of man and his thinking, so securely rooted in things them- 
selves, are really after all read into them by man. Our relations 
are not with the object as it is, but with the revised version of 
it prepared by the subject himself. 

Yet however clearly we recognise the inconsistencies of the 
historical tendency, its proneness to a predominantly passive 
attitude, its danger of paralysing all forceful, vigorous action, 
it has nevertheless great merits. It has made life richer, fuller, 
more concrete, and has sought to found it on a broader basis. 
He who refuses to regard the movement as final must still 
recognise its widening, enriching effect upon life, and so give 
Romanticism its due. 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 483 

(c) German Speculative Thought in its Relation to the Problem 

0} Life 

The great systems which arise at the end of the eighteenth 
and the beginning of the nineteenth century must be interpreted 
in the light of their age and purpose. Otherwise there is the 
aggravating possibility that men like Schelling and Hegel, with 
whom even a Goethe could associate on equal terms, should be 
regarded as mere adventurers in the kingdom of thought, or 
even as half-insane. There will be no danger of committing 
this error if we regard them as the offspring of an age which, 
in revulsion against all mere systems of external adjustment, 
sought to realise a self-contained, spiritual realm; an age which 
had the highest reverence for human nature and its possibilities, 
and found in free creation, after the manner of art, the cul' 
minating glory of life. Such creation, as conceived by the 
leaders of philosophical thought, does not mean the fashioning 
of a self -spun world of dreams existing side by side with the real 
world ; it means the discovery and firm grasp of the essentials of 
the spiritual life, and a fruitful concentration on these central 
issues. The whole reality is thereby to be reclaimed and 
spiritually reillumined, the whole world drawn into the one 
aspiring movement of spiritual life. The fundamental ideas 
were sound enough; the defect lay rather in the hasty and 
almost presumptuous manner in which they were carried out. 
With one bold stroke the heart of reality was to be reached, 
and man's spiritual life regarded as absolute. This implied an 
unduly narrow and anthropomorphic conception of reality. Not 
only did the much-abused world of sense protest against it, 
but the spiritual life itself refused to submit to so summary a 
procedure. It was indeed mainly in the spiritual interest that 
a counter-movement became necessary, a reaction against this 
over-tension of our human capacity. But however true it is 
that the problem requires to be treated upon a broader basis 
and with greater circumspection, we yet must admit a peculiar 
value in these bold, cosmological speculations, which cast all 



484 THE MODERN WORLD 

their creations in one mould, match personality against the 
universe, and give so vigorous and characteristic an interpreta- 
tion of reality. Not only do they contain a boundless wealth 
of suggestion and inspiration on this point and on that, but they 
give our whole thought a trend toward largeness and systematic 
unity. He who submits himself without prejudice to the influ- 
ence of these men with their trenchant, thoroughly individual 
and characteristic style, will be clearly conscious of the superior- 
ity of their reasoning to all the clever argumentation of those 
smaller minds that follow in the wake of genius, and are so 
much stronger in criticism than in construction. 

From among these leaders we shall select here Fichte, Schil- 
ling, Hegel, Schleiermacher, and Schopenhauer. The four first, 
whatever their differences, agree in giving a positive value to 
the world, viewing it as an expression of Reason, while Schopen- 
hauer is equally decided in viewing it negatively as a realm of 
Unreason. Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel make a bold attempt 
to reproduce in the form of an unbroken evolution of thought 
the very way in which the cosmos came into being, in a word, 
to "construct" the world; while Schleiermacher pursues the 
same object in a quieter, more circumspect, and, it must be ad- 
mitted, less forcible manner. The most important philosophical 
expression of nineteenth century culture is found in Hegel, and 
it is he, therefore, who will occupy our main attention. 

(a) SYSTEMS OF CONSTRUCTIVE THOUGHT 

Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, despite their differences, are yet 
all three sharers in a common movement : one fundamental con- 
viction underlies all their work. To understand this conviction, 
we must go back to Kant, particularly to his discovery of spirit- 
ual syntheses and the organic character of spiritual life, with 
which is bound up the development of a "transcendental" 
method in philosophy, as distinguished from the experiential. 
Kant himself had assigned very definite limitations to this 
method and used it only under clearly specified conditions. 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 485 

His successors were bolder. Full of the fresh energy of youthful 
aspiration, thrown back upon themselves by the ferment of the 
time in which they lived, they aspired to see thought free from 
all such limitations and to make it the centre, the growing-point, 
of reality. It seemed to them that they had only to exert all 
their strength in order to draw to themselves — or rather draw 
from themselves — the whole infinite universe. 

The spiritual life, however, cannot be required to undertake 
creative work on this vast scale, unless the ordinary conception 
of it be materially widened. It cannot be the possession of this 
or that individual: it must cut itself loose from individuals and 
establish an independent existence of its own. There is an ever- 
increasing tendency for it to become a self-governing realm, 
requiring man's fealty and submission, not swayed by any pur- 
poses of his, but simply by its own necessities. At the same 
time, it can no longer rest in its own perfections, but must make 
continual progress, develop under the inspiration of its inward 
forces, be ever moving upward in unresting, steady advance. 
It is a process which draws in the whole of reality, and is 
therefore essentially alive and plastic. History in particular, 
as the anvil on which spiritual life is forged, gains an added 
significance. Moreover, the upward movement is soon seen to 
be subject to one simple and fundamental law, which is that 
progress is made through the development and transcendence 
of oppositions. In the ascent of the spiritual life, each assertion 
at once gives rise to a negation; from their conflict a synthesis 
emerges. More antitheses and syntheses follow, and again 
more, till at last all reality is embraced by the movement and 
transmuted into the life of thought and spirit. 

As the spiritual life thus becomes independent of man, the 
outlook and problem of human experience undergo essential 
changes. At the outset, the spiritual process was still closely 
connected with man and directly influenced by his feeling. He 
was the sovereign lord of things, able, so he thought, by a 
supreme exercise of his powers, to conjure forth the whole of 
reality. But in proportion as the spiritual life develops into a 



486 THE MODERN WORLD 

self-governing kingdom independent of man, in proportion as 
man is obliged to submit to its laws and recognise a sphere of 
fact in which he can have no initiative, its processes pass more 
and more out of the control of the immediate psychical ex- 
perience. If through all these phases spiritual activity is still 
the essence of reality, its position with regard to man, and 
therefore its relation to reality, is none the less entirely changed, 
and there is a corresponding change in the way of regarding 
and treating the various activities of life. 

The three leaders of the movement, Fichte, Schelling, and 
Hegel, are not to be figured as the mere stages of one continuous 
process culminating in Hegel; each of these thinkers seeks in a 
different direction for the essence of spiritual life and thought. 
For Fichte, thought is a kind of moral action which subdues the 
world to lofty ends; for Schelling, it is an artistic construction, 
changing reality within and without us into a living work of 
art; with Hegel, we see thought spontaneously unfold a pro- 
cess of strict, logical dialectic, embracing all that the world in 
its evolution has achieved, and reaching its consummation in 
the thought of thought. Each looks at the world in his own 
way; each emphasises different spheres and different problems; 
each has his peculiar mental atmosphere. Together they have 
made so rich a contribution to human life, provided such a 
wealth of suggestion and inspiration, that, though their influ- 
ence may at times be obscured or disregarded, it can never suffer 
permanent eclipse. 

(aa) Fichte (1762-1814). — Fichte's thought is pre-eminently 
an expression of his personality, a wrestling with the problem of 
his own being. His natural bias was all in favour of forceful self- 
expression; but so long as Spinoza's influence compelled him to 
see in man a mere link in a rigidly causal sequence, he was 
unable to strike out for himself along congenial lines. From 
this position of painful uncertainty he found a means of escape 
in the Kantian system with its emphasis on the subject, its 
transformation of causality from a cosmic law into a function 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 487 

of the mind, its exaltation of the practical reason. His adhesion 
to Kant, however, leads directly to a further advance upon 
Kant's position. Fichte would make the activity of the self 
supreme in the theoretical as well as in the practical field, and 
consequently the Kantian exclusion of this activity from the 
noumenal world comes to be felt as an intolerable dualism: the 
"Thing-in-Itself" must be given up once and for all. The 
practical reason is made the root of all reason. Action is in- 
volved in thought itself, possessing as it does the power to 
quicken and illuminate reality. We may confidently undertake 
to educe the whole world out of our own activity and thus bring 
it entirely within our power. Throughout our lives we are con- 
fronted with an Either- Or, with a choice between freedom and 
non-freedom. Throughout it concerns us to base our existence 
upon our own deeds, i. e., to rest it upon clear ideas, and to 
shape it in accordance with these ideas. Never must we blindly 
obey regulations externally imposed, never trust to mere au- 
thority and tradition, but our own deed must be at the back of 
everything, and we ourselves must be part of all our work. 
The adoption of the stand-point of freedom exercises the pro- 
foundest influence on state, society and religion. Everywhere men 
are shaken out of their old ruts and their lazy acquiescence, every- 
where summoned to manly independence and a rational ordering 
of life. Culture is now the goal of all life's energies, culture in the 
sense of " the bending of every power to secure complete freedom, 
complete independence of all that is not truly ourselves." 

The stirring, urgent quality of his appeal makes us think of 
Fichte as a very strong, tempestuous nature; but his effort is 
directed primarily not outward, but inward. He aims at an 
inner concentration and a searching self-criticism, at attaining 
independence both of life and thought. His work is primarily a 
scientific construction, a philosophy; and only later is it applied 
systematically to life. For " the power which really enslaves man 
is false illusion"; therefore we are told that "to live truly is to 
think truly and to know the truth." Moreover, our activity, 
when turned inward upon itself, finds in the depth of its own 



4 8& THE MODERN WORLD 

nature a conformity to law. All action is motived by an Ought, 
by the idea of Duty. The recognition of this conformity to law 
gives to life in all its developments a severely moral character; 
its nobleness is its obligation, its obligations give it nobility. 
Morality does not make man small and weak, but big and 
strong; it does not mean that life is hedged about by troublesome 
police regulations, but that it is promoted to full self-activity, 
originality, freedom from the bondage of the world. 

Fichte accordingly implants in the human soul strong and 
fruitful impulses, which have had no small effect in making life 
— primarily the life of the German people — sound and healthful. 
He is not so successful, however, in translating these impulses 
into effective action, and does scant justice to the wealth of 
reality. However admirable the energy with which in later 
years he spins a whole world out of the Ego, which he looks upon 
as a source of perpetual movement, yet this world is unmistak- 
ably abstract and formal, and becomes more and more shadowy 
in proportion as thought gets further from its starting-point. 

Fichte only enters into closer relationship with things when 
for him the Ego has become the Absolute Life, exalted above 
all individual existence. Even so we are still concerned with 
giving a reasonable shape to reality through our own unwearied 
activity, but now human action is included within a cosmic 
process, and we must find our right relation to the whole before 
we can be successful at any particular point. Thus life assumes 
a distinctly religious character; we have the development of a 
new mysticism which bids man seize on the "Eternal One" as 
that which alone is essential in his individual life and being. 

" Das ewig Eine 
Lebt mirim Leben, sieht in meinem Sehen." 1 

But however inward the sentiment, this religion remains en- 
tirely a religion of reason and the living present. Fichte cannot 
away with any idle tarrying and hoping for a Beyond : " through 
the mere process of being buried no man can attain blessedness." 

111 The Eternal One 

Lives in my life, the light of all my seeing." 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 489 

Again, he will have no intermixture of historical dates with the 
necessary truths of reason. "We may not say: What harm is 
there in holding to this historical fact also ? There is always 
harm in placing accidentals on a level with essentials, or, as so 
often happens, in passing off accidentals as essentials, thereby 
obscuring the latter and troubling men's consciences." 

This further development of Fichte's thought gives a higher 
value to history and social life. History is now regarded as the 
collective work of humanity, as its solution of the problem how 
to give to reason, which, though obscured and limited, has 
always been operative among men, a thoroughly clear expres- 
sion and a foundation in personal activity; how to order all the 
relations of life so that they may be consistent with freedom 
and yet in harmony with reason. Especially important to 
Fichte — the very thinker who had laid it down as the aim of all 
government "to make government superfluous" — is the political 
community, and in this matter his thought moves through 
various phases. From the free state with which he starts he 
passes first to the "closed industrial state," whose aim is to 
secure economical prosperity to all its members, then to the 
state, whose main watchword is civilisation, whose duty it is 
to assist, without being in any way dictatorial, every kind of 
spiritual activity; and finally, after the Prussian overthrow at 
Jena, he inclines to the conception of a national state. This is 
the first time that the idea of nationality enters within the phil- 
osophical purview, and we must therefore explain Fichte's 
position with regard to it somewhat more closely. Man, he 
considers, can only truly love that which he can conceive as 
eternal and absorb into the responsive eternal element in his 
own heart; thus his earthly life and work would be deficient in 
genuine love and power, if it could not show him some form of 
solidarity which might secure continuity to his effort through 
all ages to come. Such solidarity he can find only in his own 
nation, "that particular spiritual offshoot of humanity from 
which he himself has sprung, with all his thought and action, 
and belief in these as eternal, the nation which gave him birth, 



49Q THE MODERN WORLD 

educated him, and made him what he is." "This national in- 
dividuality is the Eternal, to which he entrusts the immortality 
of his life and work, that Eternal Order of things to which he 
confides his own immortality; he cannot but desire that this 
individuality should continue, since only so can the short span 
of his life here below be extended even here below into a life of 
endless duration." A man who thus links the thought of 
nationality with humanity's very highest ideals will naturally 
lay stress not on external power and expansion, but on inward 
culture and a strongly marked spiritual temper. Thus, even as 
a politician, Fichte is still a philosopher and continues to regard 
things in their eternal aspect. German life and character he 
deems especially valuable, because in it he seems to detect a 
specially strong bias toward that which is innermost and most 
elemental in man; and he is therefore the first to assign to the 
Germans the largest share among the nations of the quality we 
may term "heart." Historical evidence of this he finds mainly 
in the Reformation, in the German philosophy with its construc- 
tion of reality out of the spiritual activity of the self, and in 
German education with its tendency to mould man from 
within. 

Fichte was a man of few, though great, ideas, and even in 
regard to these few ideas, his skill lay in framing the general 
conception rather than in carefully elaborating it. Born, how- 
ever, in an age which was as critical for the life of culture gen- 
erally as it was for his own nation in particular, he found his 
mission in the awakening of men's minds, and he discharged it 
with a loyal devotion. His constructive work, at once stimulat- 
ing and strengthening, and the constant direction of his effort 
to the deep things of life, together with his stern inculcation of 
the qualities that make for manliness, have indeed exercised an 
enduring and imperishable influence. 

(bb) Schelling (1775-1854). — If in this little band of thinkers 
Fichte is pre-eminently the active and ethical personality, it is 
Schelling who is the artist and aesthete. For even when he 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 491 

turns his attention to other domains, as, for example, nature, 
his enquiry is only important and suggestive in so far as it is 
sustained by the artistic interest; removed from this, it becomes 
forthwith whimsical and ineffective. It is only in the light of an 
age of great artistic ferment, and as the expression of a person- 
ality with strong artistic leanings, that Schelling's philosophy of 
nature becomes at all intelligible. The ideal of artistic intui- 
tion — to see nature as a realm of vital forces and inward con- 
nections — must now serve also as the ideal for science. This 
transference cannot be effected without a very summary, ar- 
bitrary, violent treatment of the material in question; but 
through all the errors of Schelling's procedure there runs a vein 
of quickening, stimulating thought. Nature is represented as 
a spiritual whole, embracing all manifoldness within a single 
life. She is, however, no fixed and stable being, but a constant 
becoming, a process perpetually advancing through self- 
development, the motive-power being the opposition of positive 
and negative forces, attraction and repulsion. Thus there is no 
such thing as an isolated, fixed form; all forms are borne along 
on the stream of an infinite life. "Nature is not merely the 
product of an incomprehensible act of creation; it is the creation 
itself. It is not only the appearance or manifestation of the 
Eternal; it is also the Eternal Itself." At heart, nature and 
spirit are one and the same; only what happens unconsciously 
in the one sphere attains to consciousness in the other. Thus 
we may legitimately hope and endeavour to approach the 
meaning of nature through the study of thought. "What we 
call 'nature' is a poem, written in a mystic hieroglyph, so that 
its meaning lies hidden from us. But if it could be deciphered, 
we should recognise in it the Odyssey of the mind, as it seeks 
itself, flees from itself, and undergoes strange illusions. The 
sense-world is like the words through which the meaning peers, 
like the mist which half reveals and half conceals that visionary 
land to which our souls aspire." 

The majority of scientific thinkers have felt an instinctive 
and decided aversion to this train of thought, but on an artistic 



492 THE MODERN WORLD 

nature like Goethe's it exercised a profound influence. When 
the Goethe of later years reflects that his earlier conception of 
nature had lacked "appreciation of the two great motive- 
powers in nature — polarity and progress" — to whom is he in- 
debted more than to Schelling for the remedying of the 
defect ? 

Schelling's artistic conception of nature was at a later period 
extended so as to take in the whole universe. Reality is repre- 
sented as a work of art, self-poised and self -renewing. In this 
work of art, all the oppositions of life — sense and spirit, rest and 
movement, particular and universal — are included and trans- 
cended. It is to humankind, however, that art opens up the 
ultimate depth of reality; to us it appears as the "only and 
eternal revelation, a miracle so great that, had it only existed 
for a moment, it were sufficient to convince us of the absolute 
reality of our highest ideals." 

The natural accompaniment of such a belief is the endeavour 
to fashion human existence, both in its general and its special 
aspects, upon artistic lines. The ideal is not, as with Fichte, 
the moral character, but rather the individuality of genius. If 
it was Fichte's idea that the whole of existence should consist in 
self-determined action, Schelling's motto is "Learn that you 
may create." Even the sciences find their culminating expres- 
sion in the artistic re-shaping and contemplation of the uni- 
verse. This is especially important for the treatment of history, 
which Schelling would like to see regarded as an art. In his 
legal and political doctrines he is in close touch with the Ro- 
mantic school, not only absorbing its convictions, but develop- 
ing them still further. His aim is nothing less than to rid these 
fields of research of all human theorising, and base them en- 
tirely upon an indwelling life of their own and an inherent 
necessity of their constitution. The whole is to take precedence 
of the individual. Greater than all conscious activity is the 
process of unconscious growing and becoming. Schelling, there- 
fore, as compared with the Enlightenment, is in closer touch 
with experience, and has opened up an inexhaustible mine of 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 493 

intuitable fact. But his attitude is too one-sidedly contemplative, 
too passive; and through desire not to be anthropomorphic, he 
is in danger of stultifying individual initiative and falling under 
the sway of merely natural concepts. 

A closer scrutiny of Schilling's artistic attitude forces upon 
us a problem which points back indeed to Goethe, the problem 
attaching to the relationship between ancient and modern art. 
The art of German Humanism was primarily an expression of 
soul. Its best and most influential work was lyrical. It was 
saturated with thought. The artistic form, however, which it 
gave to its ideas was mainly determined by the plastic arts, 
especially by sculpture. This opened a passage for the entrance 
of Greek feeling into modern life, though the complete blending 
of two such entirely different tendencies was not to be expected. 
With Schelling, as with Goethe, whose creative work was so 
largely moulded by Schelling's ideas, the Greek influence re- 
mains something that is never perfectly assimilated, that is 
even alien in character. 

Schelling's artistic conception of the world was sustained by 
his belief in the rationality of the real, by the optimistic mood 
which animated the whole epoch of the German classical litera- 
ture. This attitude it was impossible to maintain at a later 
time, when personal experience had clouded his view of life and 
the world, and the irrationality of the universe seemed too great 
to be overcome, save by a deep-reaching transformation of the 
world as given and by the help of Powers higher than our- 
selves. Thus art must yield place to religion, and Schelling 
becomes mainly occupied with the problem of bringing about 
the "rebirth of religion through the agency of science in its 
supremest form." Nor is it his own problem merely, but, so he 
declares, "the problem of the German spirit, the appointed 
goal of all its strivings." In the prosecution of his design, 
Schelling strikes a new and a deeper note. Evil becomes more 
real: there is a tendency to dwell on the mysterious element in 
human existence. "All nature is wearing itself out in incessant 
toil. Man also takes no rest. It is, as an old book says : every- 



494 THE MODERN WORLD 

thing under the sun is full of labour and sorrow. And yet we 
do not see any advance made, anything really attained, any- 
thing, that is, in which we can rest and be satisfied." 

Schelling's own contribution to the solution of the problem 
consists of some daring speculation on the origin of evil and a 
theory of a progressive divine revelation, a theory which finds 
room for all the various religions. Some of his ideas are highly 
suggestive, but there is so much that is fantastic in them, his 
attempt to explain the irrational rationally is so impossible, that 
his contemporaries had a very good excuse for roundly rejecting 
the whole system. Schelling alienated himself more and more 
from the feeling of his age and from that living, moving present 
he had so boldly thought to guide. 

Moreover, in his life-work generally his suggestions far out- 
weigh in importance his actual achievements. He is too swift 
and hasty ever to be mature. Nevertheless, such is the brilliancy 
of his genius, the versatility of his effort, and the attractiveness 
of his style, that he has had a great influence in enriching life 
and widening the spiritual horizon. He broke down many 
obstinate prejudices, brought together much scattered material, 
and softened the asperity of many oppositions. In particular, 
he set the oppositions of sense and spirit, intuition and thought, 
in a far friendlier and more fruitful relation than had been 
suggested by any previous writer. 

(cc) Hegel (1770-1831). — In industry and systematic strength 
Hegel is far and away superior to Schelling. He has at his dis- 
posal all the resources of a completed system, and this has 
enabled him to make so deep an impression on the life of the 
century that it cannot escape his influence, however hard it may 
try. Again and again we hear that Hegel is outworn and super- 
seded, and that he is separated from us by an impassable gulf. 
And yet he still wields power over the minds of men, still makes 
converts. In our work, our ideas, our problems, his influence is 
latently active, though it may often be unrecognised. Thus 
Hegel both attracts and repels us. We recognise in him one of 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 495 

the forces of the century, as well as a sign that is universally 
spoken against. It is an alluring paradox! 

However high-handed a superiority Hegel's system may 
assume, it is yet but a simple fact and an old truth which it 
takes up and develops, the fact of the thought operative within 
us. Thought, though belonging to our own nature, exercises at 
the same time a control over us. Even in the individual it de- 
velops its consequences without any regard to his will. It de- 
mands imperatively that contradictions which have been recog- 
nised shall be solved. It is truer to say not that we think, but 
that thinking goes on within us. Socrates had already distin- 
guished clearly between thought on the one hand and mere in- 
dividual presentations on the other, and found in thought a sure 
support for knowledge and for life. Hegel, however, does not 
stop at the thought of the individual thinker; he is concerned 
with thought as it presents itself in the life of humanity and the 
process of the world's history. The result of this new departure 
is to make thought not something that is once and for all and 
can rest in its completeness, but a process that is now in progress 
and developing in conformity with its own laws. It is not 
something which exists side by side with things, but it is that 
which embraces them all and projects them from itself. The 
thought-process, accordingly, by claiming as its own all the 
products of the world's history, becomes a world-process, the 
true substance of all reality, subjugating to its logic the whole 
wide world. 

This attempt of Hegel's necessitates an emancipation of 
thought from everything that is distinctively human. To effect 
this emancipation, we must be sufficiently strong and courageous 
to put aside our own ideas and perceptions, rise to the height of 
objective thinking, and merely follow where it leads us. Then 
forthwith our limitations fall away, and human reason becomes 
one with the Divine. Nothing less than this justifies us in trust- 
ing to the power of thought, and, without such trust, it is im- 
possible, according to Hegel, to put any heart into philosophical 
work. "Courageous trust in truth, faith in the power of mind, 



496 THE MODERN WORLD 

is the primary requisite of philosophical study. Man must 
respect himself and esteem himself worthy of the highest. He 
cannot think too highly of the greatness and power of mind. 
The secret nature of the universe is powerless to resist a coura- 
geous trust in knowledge. It is bound to open its doors, re- 
veal its riches, and bid us rejoice in their possession." 

The transformation of reality into pure thought follows, 
however, a certain method: there are inherent contradictions in 
the concepts, which call urgently for a solution and provoke the 
formation of new concepts. The process repeats itself, and 
thus the movement widens out till it brings everything alien into 
its circle, lights up all that was obscure, and transforms all 
assumption into well-grounded insight. "The True is the 
Whole. The Whole, however, is nothing more than Being per- 
fecting itself through its own development." The method is 
really just the self-developing movement of the concept. For, 
truly speaking, each concept is a "unity of opposite moments"; 
in everything real there is a coming together of being and not- 
being, and therefore "all things are implicitly self-contra- 
dictory." The development and solution of these contradic- 
tions make the concept ever richer in content, till at last the 
mind knows the whole infinite universe for its property, and 
therewith reaches the summit of complete self-consciousness. 

In this process every step is but a point of transition; no one 
thing can seek to establish a separate existence without imme- 
diately becoming stereotyped and false. Precisely at the mo- 
ment when it reaches its highest point of development, its down- 
fall begins. How should it go on living when its work is done ? 
Life, on this view, is a process of incessant decay. But the decay 
does not imply utter annihilation. When something disappears 
from view, it is not therefore extinct. That which has to give up 
its separate existence, be "transcended" in the sense of "ne- 
gated," remains as a part, a moment, of a higher stage in which 
it is "transcended" in a more positive sense. The individual 
succumbs to the tidal forces of this stupendous process, only to 
find within the Whole a new and imperishable existence. Thus 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 497 

the victory rests finally with life, but in the annihilation which is 
demanded of it there is a profoundly tragic note. 

The vigorous prosecution of this method results in a thor- 
oughly characteristic representation of our world of reality. 
Not only are all things in a state of flux, but they are all linked 
together and referred to each other: their meaning can only be 
ascertained from their mutual relations and connections. Every- 
where we advance through conflict and collision, and not through 
a process of quiet accumulation. Our life is strained to the 
utmost tension of activity. The apparently external world of 
sense is now proved to be merely the mind revealing itself to 
itself in phenomenal form; nowhere has matter an independent 
value of its own. Throughout the mind must draw upon its 
own resources. Its work transcends all merely human pur- 
poses, transcends, too, the capacity of the fleeting conscious 
life. Man, while still in his own sphere, comes under the influ- 
ence of higher Powers. All spiritual activity, however, is con- 
centrated in the conceptual labour of thought; accordingly, the 
essential thing is to refer complex states to the unifying concept, 
and let one illuminating idea flood a whole region with light. 
It is these ideas which are the pivot, we might even say the 
propelling mechanism, of history. The various regions again 
are reunited in one comprehensive system; they become stages 
and manifestations of one single truth. In this vast process of 
spiritualisation all things become closely bound and linked 
together; all life is cast from one mould. Throughout the welter 
and turmoil of the movement we feel the singleness of the point 
of view from which it is regarded, and it is this which changes 
the storm and stress of existence into the repose of a life that is 
lived sub specie cetemitatis. 

This process is primarily a matter of the intellect, and not of 
the moral nature. But it in no wise lacks a moral element. 
Such an element is involved in the surrender to objective truth, 
to the movement of ideas which go on their way, develop and 
die, with no regard to the weal and woe of individuals. They 
make use of man, even without his knowledge and against his 



498 THE MODERN WORLD 

will. They are "cunning" enough to make a tool of him, even 
when he is pursuing his own ends and gratifying his passions. 
"The passions are mutually destructive; Reason alone keeps 
watch, follows up her ends, and carries them through." But 
let a man adopt these ideas into his own will, and he will then 
realise his true greatness and understand the real meaning of 
morality. "The great men in history are those whose own 
private ends embody the will of the World-spirit." 

Hegel develops these ideas with much more success in some 
fields than in others. Nature for him is always a kind of step- 
child, and he is not very happy even when dealing with the 
psychical life of the individual. His strength lies in the sphere 
of history and social life. He is indeed the most important 
philosophical exponent of the historical movement in the nine- 
teenth century. Above all others, he is the philosopher of our 
modern life and .culture. No one else has worked out its in- 
tellectualism, optimism, and belief in progress with such mas- 
terly thoroughness. 

Hegel's sociology gives particularly clear expression to his 
trend of thought. Consistently with his subordination of the 
individual to the whole, the state, as an expression of the 
whole, takes emphatic precedence of the individual. He does 
indeed find that the essence of the more modern state consists in 
the fact. that "the universal is bound up with the full freedom 
of the particular and the well-being of individuals," but the 
primacy of the universal is never for one moment questioned, 
and the contrast to the State of the Enlightenment with its basis 
of individual justice and freedom is glaringly apparent. More- 
over, even though Hegel is convinced that much of importance 
is effected not by collective action, but by the work of particular 
men of genius, yet these men do not stand outside their age; 
they are the product of it, and are merely making consciously 
explicit the aspirations of the community at large. "Public 
opinion is a mixture of truth and falsity; to sift out that which is 
true in it is the work of the great man. The great man is he 
who is the mouthpiece and executor of his age." 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 499 

At the same time Hegel deprecates strongly the deep-rooted 
tendency to criticise the state from a merely subjective point of 
view, and find a satisfaction in pointing out the errors which 
are unavoidable in human affairs. What is of far more import- 
ance is to live into the spirit of the whole, and interpret its 
utterance in the light of its own inner nature. Just as every- 
where it is the mark of a rational insight to come to an under- 
standing with reality, so the state also is to be understood and 
portrayed as intrinsically rational. It is not the primary busi- 
ness of philosophy to tell us what the world ought to be like, 
but to recognise the rational as real and the real as rational. 
The philosophical attitude, however, is proper rather to the 
end than the beginning of an historical epoch. " Being reflection 
about the world, philosophy does not make its appearance until 
reality has passed through its formative stage and become com- 
plete. Only at the approach of dusk, does the owl of Minerva 
begin her flight." 

Thus Hegel has inculcated a higher conception of the state 
and has taught us to invest it with more important functions. 
On the other hand, he is largely responsible for that mystical 
exaggeration of the idea of the state, which threatens more and 
more to turn the spiritual life into a mechanism. He who with 
Hegel sees in the state "the realisation of the moral Idea," 
"the divine Will effectively differentiating itself into the reality 
and organised structure of a world," must end by viewing it as 
an "earthly-divinity" and refusing to allow that it has any 
limitations. 

The more detailed elaboration of the view sets throughout 
in a very clear light its main and fundamental position. Thus 
Hegel endeavours to trace the power of logical oppdsition in 
the life of society. For example, he understands punishment 
as the negation of that negation of justice which the delinquent 
has committed; he recognises in love at once a surrender of 
one's own being and the acquisition of a new being through 
self-denial. "Love is the most tremendous contradiction, im- 
possible for the understanding to solve." "Love at once sets 



500 THE MODERN WORLD 

the contradiction and solves it." Contrary to the usual tend- 
ency of philosophy, Hegel even defends war as "an indis- 
pensable means of maintaining the moral health of the nations, 
preserving their plasticity, and counteracting the tendency of 
settled habits to degenerate into conventional routine." 

His ideal of government is the rule of intelligence, exercised 
by officials who have been philosophically trained and are full 
of interest in spiritual problems. The representatives of the 
people must not interfere with affairs of state, though it is their 
duty to insist upon the government giving an account of its 
procedure, thereby lifting political life on to a higher plane of 
consciousness. 

Hegel, however, does not regard the individual state as having 
its terminus within itself. It is only a tributary in the stream of 
the world's history. There is always one nation which takes 
the lead in the development of its epoch; each civilised people 
has its day. But it maintains its lead only for a limited time 
and then hands on the torch to another. All the achievements 
of particular nations and particular periods subserve but one 
idea: the development of spirit to the point at which it becomes 
conscious of its freedom. Alike in constructive and destructive 
processes, the spirit is simply finding itself, coming back upon 
itself, and so achieving its highest perfection. A freedom of 
this kind which takes in the whole content of life is fundament- 
ally different from the merely natural and subjective freedom 
which is only just embarking on its work. This higher freedom 
is only to be won at the cost of endless toil. For "the develop- 
ment which in nature is a peaceful process of growth involves 
for spirit a hard and ceaseless struggle against itself. The real 
aim of the spirit is to realise its own idea, but it conceals this 
idea from itself, and is full of pride and pleasure in this aliena- 
tion of itself." But at the same time we may "rest assured that 
it is the nature of truth to make its appearance when its time 
comes, and that it only appears when this time has come, and 
therefore never appears too early nor finds the community un- 
ready." 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 501 

The way in which the separate epochs form sections and stages 
of this world-historic process has been developed by Hegel 
in a concise though powerful treatment, and traced right up to 
the present era in which he sees the victorious finale of the whole 
drama, the full self-consciousness of spirit. He concludes with 
the joyful assurance: "The development of the Spiritual Prin- 
ciple is the true theodicy, for this it is which makes us see that 
Spirit can only be free in a spiritual medium, and that all that 
has happened and happens every day not only comes from God, 
but is the work of God Himself." 

The culmination of life Hegel finds in the kingdom of Abso- 
lute Spirit, which he separates into the departments of Art, 
Religion, and Philosophy. These are all expressions of one 
and the same truth; the self-discovery and self-appropriation of 
spirit through its own movement; but art presents this truth in 
the form of sense-intuition, religion in the form of imaginative 
representation, philosophy in the form of the pure concept. 
Everywhere it is the thought-element which is essential; the 
work of art is the embodiment of an idea, and the degeneration 
of religion into a vague feeling is strongly deprecated. " Thought 
is the very nerve of feeling; only when the thought is true is the 
feeling also genuine." All the departments must find their 
place in a scheme of historical development, wherein the present 
figures as the climax and conclusion of the whole process of 
advance through opposition. What gives a living content to 
religion is the idea running through the whole system, of the 
absorption of the individual into the totality of the thought- 
process, and his regeneration through its power. The life and 
influence of religion Hegel describes in glowing terms: "This 
is the region of the Spirit in which flow those waters of Lethe 
whereof Psyche drinks, in which she sinks her sorrow, changes 
all temporal hardships and obscurities to the fashion of a 
dream, and transfigures them with the radiance of Eternity." 
He becomes, however, strained and artificial when he tries to 
show that this immanental religion of the Absolute Thought- 
Process is identical with Christianity. 



502 THE MODERN WORLD 

The culminating point is pure philosophy, the philosophy of 
concrete knowledge, philosophy understood as "spirit know- 
ing itself in the form of spirit, or knowledge that has a grasp of 
the whole." Philosophy is not something separate from its 
history, but simply the movement of the history itself, when 
comprehended into a unity and illumined by thought. The 
doctrines of particular philosophers are not chance views and 
conceits of mere individuals, they are necessary stages in the 
process of thought. Each has its own sure place and finds in 
the whole alike its course and its outlet. And even when we 
take the philosophers singly, all their diversity of thought 
ranges itself under one main idea which alone gives it value. 
The progress of the movement obeys here, too, the law of oppo- 
sition, of ascent through thesis and antithesis. Here, too, 
strife is the father of all things. Looking from the present as 
from a final summit, we can see clearly all our earlier stages 
and recognise the justice of each. The whole now appears as 
"a circle rounding back upon itself, and presupposing its begin- 
ning, though it attains it only in the end." The fever of advance 
now turns to the bliss of a contemplation that is at rest with itself. 

The secret of Hegel's power is largely this: that he combines 
a rigid, apparently iron-bound system with a wealth of intuition, 
which breaks through again and again with spontaneous fresh- 
ness and force. In order to do justice to this latter factor, we 
have made a point of frequently quoting his actual words. Our 
final judgment must depend mainly on whether the system and 
the intuition combine to form an inward unity. We cannot say 
that they do. The intuition does not carry on and supplement 
the system, but reveals rather a fundamental conviction of a 
different kind — richer and broader. The system, if forced to 
abide by the position it has taken up, can offer nothing more 
than a thought of thought, a radiation of the forms and 
powers of thought into the universe, a transformation of the 
whole of reality into a tissue of logical relations. And this 
necessarily destroys the immediacy of life in all its forms. It 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 503 

banishes all psychical inwardness and at the same time all 
spiritual content. It is a dire contradiction of this main tend- 
ency when, after all, a world of sentiment is recognised, a 
spiritual depth, a realm of ethical values. Everything of the 
kind ought really to vanish before this logical machinery. Our 
being ought to be so entirely absorbed in it that not the smallest 
space should be left for any experience of the process, for any 
transmutation of it into deed and personal possession. The 
advance of the thought-process would thus tend more and 
more to swallow up all inward life and make of man a com- 
pliant tool in a process of intellectual culture. As a matter of 
fact, this tendency is at work in Hegel, and, in so far as it gains 
the upper hand, is a victory for empty form, abstraction, and 
soullessness. 

But there is a counteracting influence constantly opposing it — 
the rich intuitive genius of a man of mark, the power to take a 
comprehensive survey over vast tracts of time and assimilate in 
his own way the experience of the world's history. Here the 
Dialectic is no longer a consuming Moloch, but a friendly power, 
helping life to work out its meaning and itself subserving a 
larger whole. It is in this way that Hegel's philosophy of art 
is enabled to draw upon the vast resources of our classical litera- 
ture, that his religious philosophy is suffused with the glow and 
inspiration of Christianity, that his political ideas are enriched 
by the facts of modern civilisation, that his thought becomes 
throughout fruitful and penetrating whenever the mere move- 
ment of the concepts is counterbalanced by a living intuition 
of spiritual reality. 

On the other hand, when his intuition fails him, as it notably 
does fail him in dealing with nature, when the constructive 
power of the idea is left to its own resources, he forthwith be- 
comes formal, empty, intolerable, and his still unabated pre- 
tensions merely provoke antagonism. For here we have a 
most illuminating illustration of how little can be done by the 
mere manipulation of concepts; it is like turning a screw in a 
vacuum where it meets with no resistance. 



5o 4 THE MODERN WORLD 

Thus in Hegel we are face to face with a serious contradic- 
tion: the progress of his work involves the destruction of that, 
the retention of which is essential to its greatness. In Hegel 
himself the contradiction never becomes explicit, because his 
personality is always able to restore a fairly satisfactory balance 
between his method and his insight. But once away from his 
personality and its work, the forces of dissension are let loose, 
and the system falls hopelessly asunder. 

And yet despite all that may be problematic and defective in 
Hegel, we cannot deny the towering greatness of his achieve- 
ment. He secured recognition for the more universal truths, 
truths which even his opponents are bound to admit. Irresist- 
ibly powerful and fascinating is his idea of an all-embracing 
system, uniformly moulding and shaping every department, the 
thought of a life in perpetual movement, individual forms in 
ceaseless flux, changing in response to the changing conditions of 
the whole. Overwhelmingly impressive is his idea of a reality 
which refuses to accommodate itself to our likes and dislikes, 
his portrayal of the rise and conflict of independent thought- 
systems completely beyond the control of this school or of that. 
It is he who makes us aware of the tremendous power of nega- 
tion in our lives, of the rousing, stimulating force of contradic- 
tion, and of the advance of the spiritual movement through 
opposition. All these ideas are in the highest degree fruitful, 
and a system which thought to dispense with them would be 
wofully the poorer. Nor does Hegel present them merely as a 
programme, but as an achieved construction, well organised 
and firmly compacted. If, however, while admitting all this, 
we are compelled to dissent from his interpretation of the world 
as mere thought, and look upon it as an error of momentous 
import, we recognise at once the inconsistency of the total im- 
pression. There seems to be a hopeless mixture of that which 
is fruitful and necessary with much that is perverse and unten- 
able. We are at one and the same time attracted and repelled. 

To contradiction, the inward dialectic of the concepts, Hegel 
has assigned a central place in the process of thought; and he 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 505 

has himself come under the power of this dialectic. His inten- 
tion was, by a clear, connected treatment of the world's de- 
velopment, to exercise a reassuring, calming, pacific influence. 
The system, as we see it at first, with its tendency to prove the 
real to be rational and the rational real, has a thoroughly con- 
servative stamp. But as a matter of fact, it has kindled the 
most violent passions, and been the cause of most destructive 
upheavals, particularly in religious, political and social matters; 
it is the strongest radical force of modern times. How can we 
account for this discrepancy between intention and achieve- 
ment? 

Primarily, on the ground of an inherent contradiction in the 
Hegelian position, a contradiction which the philosophy of 
history brings home to us with special force. It consists in this, 
that while the whole of reality is transformed into a process of 
restless evolution, the process is still viewed from a stand-point 
which transcends it; there is thus a tendency to combine the 
stability of an ultimate conclusion with the relativity of an un- 
limited progress. The illimitableness of the Thought-Process 
requires a perpetual progress in time; it would be impossible for 
the movement to terminate at one particular point of time. 
Thus the present must be regarded as a mere link in a never- 
ending chain, and must be prepared to see all its endeavour 
swing round into its opposite in accordance with the law of con- 
tradiction. But this inference Hegel cannot admit at any price, 
since it would imply the surrender of the central point in his 
system, and deprive him of any right to a speculative survey. 
For such a survey requires that we should be able to review the 
whole movement; only from the point of view of the whole can 
the oppositions be overcome and integrated. This review of 
the whole, however, is impossible unless we step out of Be- 
coming into the sphere of Eternal Being and find ourselves 
transplanted into a realm of ultimately valid truth. A conclu- 
sion in this sense is therefore indispensable for Hegel, if his 
philosophy is to be more than a mere expression of a particular 
age, if it is to review the whole history of culture. These two 



506 THE MODERN WORLD 

tendencies, then, are sharply opposed; in the particular connec- 
tion we have been discussing they are quite irreconcilable. In 
Hegel's own mind the conservative tendency got the upper hand, 
and led him to take a peaceful, contemplative view of the world. 
With his successors, on the other hand, as the character of their 
age would lead us to expect, the radical tendency was victorious, 
and drove them in the direction of tempestuous upheaval and 
rampant relativity. With them truth becomes merely an off- 
spring of the age, a tool at the service of the necessities of life 
and its ever-changing requirements. 

But though the seeds of radicalism and relativity were latent 
in the system, their quick maturing was due to a change in the 
social environment. Just at the time when Hegel died, a move- 
ment was in progress which was directing the current of life 
toward the problem of visible existence, and consequently 
turning philosophy from idealism to realism. Up to Hegel's 
time preponderating emphasis had been laid on questions of 
the inward life, and man's whole importance was due to his 
creative spiritual capacity. Now, on the other hand, attention 
begins to be focussed on the man of our immediate experience, 
man as he actually is. His relationship to his physical and 
social environment offers serious problems and complications, 
which so engross our thoughts and efforts that the world of 
poetry and speculation grows dim, and if it does not altogether 
vanish, is at least degraded to a merely subsidiary position. If 
the Hegelian ideas can still maintain themselves under these 
conditions, then the powerful intellectual resources of the move- 
ment all come under the control of the individual. Its enhanced 
appreciation of the logical faculty, the fluidity of its conceptions, 
the sublimation of all its material, the advance through con- 
tradiction, all this serves to aggrandise the power of the indivi- 
dual. He can venture now to use things in this way or in that 
as it pleases him. Unfettered reflection is allowed to soar free 
of all objective compulsion. There is a tendency to talk of 
"stand-points" and "points of view," and to maintain that they 
are all equally justified, a movement toward a modern Sophis- 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 507 

tic, just as the old Sophistic sprang out of the kindred system of 
Heraclitus. 

When, moreover, simultaneously with this change, material 
interests began to make themselves felt — and all the more 
strongly for their long suppression and neglect — they found at 
their disposal the magnificent thought-apparatus of the Hegelian 
system, the whole armoury of the logico-dialectical method, to 
use for their own ends. For example, the theory of social de- 
mocracy supplies a materialistic rendering of Hegel's philosophy 
of history. Materialism in Economics would never have gained 
the power it did but for the weapons it borrowed from Hegel. 

Thus Hegel himself supplies a particularly apt illustration of 
the destructive power of the dialectical method. From the out- 
set there were daimonic powers at work in his world of thought, 
but for a while his spiritual force kept them in check. The 
peaceful, almost bourgeois character of his personality exer- 
cised a calming influence. Their sphere of operation, more- 
over, lay outside the needs and passions of every-day life : it was 
a conflict of spirits in the pure ether of thought. But the control 
vanished with Hegel. The daimonic powers broke up their 
previous connections, and sought, recklessly, each his own path. 
At the same time, they descended from their heights into the 
workaday world, mixed with its interests, infused into its move- 
ments their own passion, their own boundless craving for life. 
Our own age is still under the influence of the problems thus 
suggested. Will it be sufficiently strong to tame these forces of 
disruption, and bring the truth they contain into line with 
reason ? 

(/3) SCHLEIERMACHER (1768-1834) 

Among the leaders of German Idealism we must not omit to 
mention Schleiermacher. He lacks, indeed, the penetrating and 
renewing power of the men we have just been discussing. He 
does not fashion and colour his conception of the world in such 
a characteristic and vigorous way. But he is also free from 
their vehemence. His fine, susceptible nature gives a more 



508 THE MODERN WORLD 

fresh, ingenuous welcome to the rich influences that pour into it 
from the stores of the universe. In the interchange between 
soul and world an artistic conception of life grows up; rigid 
distinctions melt and blend; the most diverse elements are 
wrought into one pattern. Schleiermacher touches nothing that 
he does not ennoble. We must especially admire his capacity 
for bringing into mutually complementary relation opposites 
which are wont to stand as mutually exclusive alternatives. 
It is in this spirit that Schleiermacher develops his "Dialectic" 
as an artistic theory of thought. This, like the rest of his phil- 
osophy, owes its greatness not so much to what it completes or 
achieves as to its quickening, educative influence on the progress 
of thought, its power to take comprehensive views, to classify 
and co-ordinate. It is pre-eminently the philosophy of the tem- 
perament which leans at once toward art and the universal. 

His cosmic theory, such as it is, is closely related to that of 
Spinoza, who possessed an extraordinary fascination for the 
leading spirits of this epoch. There is in Schleiermacher, as in 
Spinoza, an intense longing for a unity transcending all opposi- 
tions, for an inclusion of the individual in the universal life, for 
an exaltation of our human lot above all merely human aims. 
But Schleiermacher's Spinozism is no mere imitation; it is 
Spinozism as adopted and transformed by Platonic thought. 
For into Spinoza's rigid forms, impervious to all human feeling, 
Schleiermacher breathes the warm breath of life, and this life 
gives to reality an artistic form. No sooner do things enter 
into a realm of artistic freedom and spiritual mobility than they 
lay aside their material ponderousness, flitting, and chasing each 
other in easy, charming fashion. The Greek freshness and 
grace of spirit have never been so strikingly reproduced in any 
other of the German thinkers. 

It is particularly in the spheres of ethics and religion that 
Schleiermacher has made notable contributions. This is the 
first time that a completely independent status has been ac- 
corded to religion by the more modern philosophical thought. 
Modern thinkers hitherto had regarded it either as a stage of 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 509 

knowledge, or as a means of moral training, and this subordinate 
position was almost certain to result in a decay of its inward 
life. Schleiermacher ensures the independence of religion by 
recognising that it has a spiritual basis of its own, namely, feel- 
ing. But we must carefully bear in mind the position that feeling 
holds in Schleiermacher, if we would rightly estimate the sig- 
nificance of this departure. Feeling, for Schleiermacher, is not 
just one mental faculty among others, but as " self-consciousness 
in its immediacy," "the original, undifferentiated unity of think- 
ing and willing," it is the very root of all life; in feeling we are 
not cut loose from the world, but inwardly linked with its infin- 
ity. A religion thus based on feeling, on the consciousness of 
unity with the Eternal, is centrally related to the whole develop- 
ment of life, but at the same time maintains, in virtue of its 
purely inward nature, its own domain and sphere of thought. 
Whatever doctrines it lays down cannot possibly come into con- 
flict with science and philosophy, because they are not statements 
concerning outward things, but simply helps toward the expres- 
sion of the religious feeling. This expression may very likely 
vary with the varying phases of historical development, but 
religion itself is untouched by time. Thus the way is prepared 
for a recognition of the historical factor in religion, and a recon- 
ciliation facilitated between religion and the work of civilisation. 
All this has made Schleiermacher more influential than any other 
philosopher in stirring and quickening the religious life of the 
nineteenth century. 

Ethics is also deeply indebted to him. Kant and Fichte had, 
with great force and vigour, aroused in their age a responsiveness 
to ethical impulses, and shaken it out of its soft effeminacy. But 
great as this achievement undoubtedly was, it was not without a 
strongly marked tendency to one-sidedness, harshness, rigour. 
The idea of duty, if it did not entirely suppress all other points 
of view, at least put them so much in the background that even 
the individuality of the agent was accorded but inadequate recog- 
nition. Schleiermacher, on the other hand, aims at proportion. 
He is a universal thinker, in that he recognises equally the dif- 



510 THE MODERN WORLD 

ferent aspects of ethical life, its blessings, virtues and duties; 
universal again, in that he looks at the whole of life ethically, and 
understands morality in the widest sense as the natural expres- 
sion of the reason; and finally, universal, in that he is able to 
reconcile completely the admission of a common reason with 
the significance and distinctive rights of individuality. The fact 
of cardinal importance for his philosophy is the individualisation 
of reason, " the establishing of reason, which remains in itself 
one and the same, as a separate form of existence," man's self- 
realisation as a personality, a unique manifestation of humanity. 
We may indeed question whether, in the endeavour to conceive 
morality broadly and rescue it from mere subjectivism, Schleier- 
macher has distinguished it sufficiently from nature, but the 
greatness of the service he has rendered to ethics is not thereby 
impaired. Here, as in his work generally, he has not been boldly 
aggressive and opened up new paths, but within a wide, rich 
tract of already cultivated ground he has sought to smooth away 
difficulties, and has exercised a quickening, unifying, ennobling 
influence. 

(7) SCHOPENHAUER, AND THE REACTION AGAINST RATIONAL 
IDEALISM ( 1 788-1860) 

In Schopenhauer we have the beginning of a strong reaction- 
ary movement, a reaction from the belief in the rationality of the 
real, which had inspired the creative activity of German Hu- 
manism and given it its characteristic form. And since this belief 
finds its maturest philosophical expression in Hegel, the systems 
of Hegel and of Schopenhauer stand in the sharpest opposition 
to each other. In Hegel, thought, in Schopenhauer, feeling, is 
the fundamental form of the psychical life. Hegel takes the first 
impression, essentially remoulds it, and finally displaces it alto- 
gether. Schopenhauer, on the contrary, dwells on it and deepens 
it. Reality, with Hegel, is systematised through a chain of logical 
sequences; with Schopenhauer, through the force of feelings 
which extend their influence over the whole range of experience. 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 511 

Experience secures far more recognition from Schopenhauer than 
from Hegel, yet he is not primarily an empiricist, but a metaphy- 
sician ; he reaches a stand-point from which he can survey expe- 
rience and map it out from his own peculiar point of view, a 
stand-point from which the world of immediacy is wholly in- 
verted and turned into a mere phenomenon. Large intuitions, 
emotional moods, are here the all-important factors, and the 
glimpses they afford into the world around us are rather coloured 
by their own peculiar quality than faithfully descriptive of the 
world itself. 

The essential element in human nature, and finally in the 
whole of reality, consists, according to Schopenhauer, in a mys- 
terious impulse toward life, a blind restlessly struggling will 
wholly unguided of reason. There are a thousand indications 
alike in the human sphere and the great world of nature, that 
this will and not knowledge is the all-impelling agent. In 
nature, intelligence yields place entirely to this vital impulsion; 
such knowledge as is here developed merely subserves the inter- 
ests of self-preservation. With man the intellect is certainly freer, 
but the dominance of the will and its interests is obvious even 
here. Even in the most elevated scientific work, knowledge may 
easily be diverted from its proper channel, if once the personal 
aims of the investigator are allowed to interfere. 

From convictions such as these there grew up an entirely novel 
view of nature, a view in which sensibility plays an important 
part. The classical epoch had conceived nature as a world cast 
in an artistic mould, the home of aspiring reason. Roman- 
ticism had glorified it into a realm of reposeful grandeur and 
blissful peace; but now, in direct contradiction to both these 
views, it becomes the arena where the blind forces of life surge 
and do battle with each other. Through the whole of nature 
there runs a ruthless instinct of self-preservation, an unqualified 
Will to Live. Little as this life offers, yet the little is grasped with 
tenacious greed. So narrow are the boundaries of existence that 
the competing organisms are ceaselessly urged and incited one 
against the other. A creature like the carnivorous animal cannot 



5 i2 THE MODERN WORLD 

exist at all without continually tearing and destroying others. 
The victor soon falls a prey to a still stronger rival. Thus each 
creature is in constant danger, constant agitation, and the whole 
with its restless, meaningless motion is a tragedy of the most 
piteous kind. 

Does man fare any better ? Undoubtedly in man's case a new 
factor comes into operation: the will becomes enlightened by 
intellect; life becomes conscious, the outlook freer, the sensi- 
bility finer. But the development tends to unhappiness rather 
than happiness. The limitation and misery of life are now for 
the first time felt in all their bitterness. Man with his finer 
nerves, more active intelligence, and lively fancy, not only ex- 
periences the misfortunes which actually befall him, he must 
experience in imagination every possibility of evil, pass through 
all his sorrow a thousand times over in anticipation. Even in 
his moments of prosperity cares flit around him like ghosts. 
How much more vivid and tormenting is his thought of death 
than that of the dull vegetative animal ! Nay, if we look at the 
matter more closely, there is not only a preponderance of un- 
happiness, but there actually is no real happiness. Our only 
positive sensation is pain ; what we call joy is really only the re- 
moval or alleviation of a pain. We are conscious of sickness, but 
not of health; of loss, but not of possession. Our joys are lim- 
ited to short transition periods such as convalescence, to the time 
when we are just attaining well-being. Soon we again become 
listless, unoccupied, bored. The insatiable appetite for life which 
is always craving some fresh distraction, seeks something new 
and different, and so incurs new pains. Thus life oscillates like 
a pendulum between pain, and ennui. All the arts of society are, 
in last resort, directed merely to conjuring away this ennui, the 
emptiness of ordinary humdrum existence. That pain is in truth 
the only real factor in our lives is demonstrated also by the poets, 
in that* they can paint the tortures of hell in most vivid colours, 
whereas for heaven nothing is left but monotony. 

All this might be borne if we could still be satisfied with our- 
selves, and take refuge from our troubles in the consciousness of 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 513 

moral integrity. But this we cannot do. The motives that are 
base in us far outweigh those that are noble. The self-seeking 
which is natural to all creatures becomes in man actual badness 
and wickedness. In everything that happens around him, in all 
that befalls his friends and relations, the point of primary im- 
portance for him is what advantage or harm he himself may 
derive. Hypocrisy is rampant; every one is anxious to appear 
noble and unselfish. Vanity and folly are universally prevalent. 
Men care about the most worthless things, and are mainly con- 
cerned with raising themselves in the estimation of their fellows, 
to whom, but for their vanity, they are so profoundly indifferent. 
And all these vices hold us in a remorseless grip; there is no 
possibility of an inward change, a moral purification. For 
strive as we may, the character which prompts the striving is 
unchangeable. Outside influences can effect our knowledge, but 
not our will. "Willing cannot be learnt" (velle non discitur). 
Evil impulses may be modified by advancing culture, and assume 
a form less dangerous to their owner, but in their substance they 
are unchangeable. Neither from history nor society can we 
glean any promise of a change for the better. The history of the 
world, with its purposeless activity and its weight of woe, must 
seem to an unprejudiced observer nothing more than a disordered 
dream of humanity. As for social relations, they are an epitome 
of unreason rather than reason. In particular the political 
freedom men strive for conduces far more to an unbridled exhibi- 
tion of selfishness and party passion than to an inner elevation of 
life. Thus the historical ideals and hopes of the nineteenth cen- 
tury here meet with sharp rebuff. All hope of salvation seems to 
vanish. But enchained and entangled as we are in the machinery 
of the universe, we yet have a feeling of responsibility which we 
cannot shake off. The climax of our misery is just this, that 
we cannot help referring it to our own free agency and looking 
upon it as our own fault. 

This contradiction between freedom and necessity, while it 
grievously complicates our existence, at the same time forces us 
to see in it a much deeper meaning. Since this life is unintelli- 



514 THE MODERN WORLD 

gible taken in itself alone, it cannot have an ultimate value; it 
must originate in some free activity, in a self-assertion of the 
will. It is this self-assertion which has called into being existence 
as we know it in space and time, and, through the self-diremp- 
tion it involves, has engendered those countless, mutually hostile 
beings whose collision is responsible for all the sorrow of the 
world. This is the origin of that unfathomed misery of which 
we are so painfully conscious, which holds us so fast in its re- 
morseless grip. 

And yet the philosopher does not despair of help. In the first 
place, there is some hope for the alleviation of misery in the cul- 
tivation of a contemplative attitude toward the world. Art and 
science both foster the development of such an attitude. They 
both focus attention on the objective aspect of things, and absorb 
us in the intuitive contemplation of it. The restlessness of 
willing is allayed, the passions appeased ; self-interest, with its 
agitations, cares and pains, vanishes quite away. And this is 
all the more true in that Schopenhauer, arbitrarily enough, sees 
in the elemental forms of nature beautiful shapes, resembling 
the Platonic Ideas, and so gives to merely ordinary contemplation 
the dignity of an artistic outlook. 

The emancipating power of this artistic contemplation is 
manifested best in genius, which in its intuitions and creations 
attains complete objectivity, and therewith forgets entirely the 
world and its ways. Even those who are not geniuses have their 
moments of contemplation, like oases in the desert of existence. 
This reference to pure intuition gives to science and art a wholly 
different character from that which they had for Hegel. Hegel 
sought in every spiritual product one illuminating idea; Scho- 
penhauer lays the whole emphasis on the overmastering strength 
of the immediate impression, the awakening of a mood free from 
all volition. Thus science, for Schopenhauer, approximates to 
art; and supreme among the arts is music, for music repro- 
duces all the emotions of our inmost soul, without the pain in- 
volved in their actual realisation. Drama, on the other hand, 
with its tragic issue, makes all life appear like an evil dream, 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 515 

and fosters the conviction that there must be another existence 
quite different from that which here surrounds us. 

This, however, is no solution of the problem; it only pushes it 
a little further back; it is a palliative of misery, not a cure. 
Moreover, it is a method not available always and for every one. 
The only thing that can effect a real emancipation is a complete 
breaking of the will to live, and this again can only be effected 
by a strong and genuine compassion for everything that lives and 
suffers, not only for humanity, but for every sentient crea- 
ture. In so far as this is true, the way of salvation is not through 
science or art, but through morality, Since, however, compas- 
sion of this kind makes us feel the sorrow of others exactly as 
though it were our own, and so concentrates in one single point 
the whole weight of the world's misery, the suffering becomes too 
great to bear. All hope of escape must vanish, all pleasure in 
life be destroyed. If life is all a fiery furnace with the exception 
of a few cool spots, the only hope for the individual is that he 
may light upon just those spots. But as soon as his sensibility 
widens its range so as to take in all other beings and recognise 
himself in them all, this hope is gone. The will withdraws into 
itself; life no longer has a positive content; it becomes negative. 
And what happens in man, the crown and roof of things, justi- 
fies us in hoping for a revolution in the universe as a whole. 
This whole existence will break up, as indeed it was only through 
the unrestrained, tumultuous vitality of the will that it arose in 
the first instance. Thus here we have a glimpse of a great de- 
liverance, a haven of peace and rest, which yet is not a blank 
nothingness, save for him to whom this immediate world of 
seeming is the true and ultimate reality. 

Our judgment of Schopenhauer will vary, accordingly as we 
base it upon the value of his contribution to the evolution of his- 
tory, or look upon his results as in themselves final. In the 
former case we must regard his ideas as a justifiable and import- 
ant reaction from the optimism and enthusiastic faith in civilisa- 
tion characteristic not only of the Enlightenment but also 
of the German Humanistic movement and, we might even add, 



516 THE MODERN WORLD 

the whole modern period. A strong buoyant vitality had induced 
man to represent reality as a realm of pure reason, to look upon 
the bright side of things, to overcome the contradiction of imme- 
diate impressions by placing them in the setting of some artistic 
oi logical system. This tendency was bound, by its very ad- 
vance, to overreach itself and elicit, a protest. It was Schopen- 
hauer who voiced this protest with admirable independence and 
gave it classical expression. He carries our convictions unre- 
servedly with him, when he makes us feel at every point the irra- 
tionality of our world. He brings into the foreground fresh as- 
pects of experience, fresh groups of facts; he not only criticises 
but constructs, indicating new views and new problems. His 
decisive rejection of the solutions hitherto attempted works, and 
will continue to work, as an antidote to shallowness and super- 
ficiality. Philosophy, on its own ground, here deals a deadly 
blow to all easy optimism and rationalism. The tendency to 
represent the world and life as fairly smooth and tolerable to man 
is given no quarter whatsoever. 

But it is one thing to recognise Schopenhauer's importance in 
this respect, and quite another to revere him as the master whose 
word is unconditionally and finally valid. This position is quite 
untenable in face of the fact that his treatment and valuation of 
things is, at least, as one-sided as that which he has declared war 
against, and even more subjective in character. If emphasis 
was then laid too exclusively on the light, there is now an actual 
courting of shadow. The philosopher revels with undisguised 
satisfaction in his gruesome colouring. Just as, in general, man 
finds in reality what he brings to it, so here this discrepancy in 
the judgment passed upon experience points to a fundamental 
difference in the way of looking at life. It was the predominance 
of the active impulses that made the world so important to the 
earlier thinkers, for it was in the world that their activity could 
develop and find its best expression. Schopenhauer, on the other 
hand, relates all that happens to the subjective life, to sensibility 
and emotional disposition; his attitude toward reality is rather 
contemplative than active. And since in him this tendency is 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 517 

allied with a suspicious and timid disposition, he reaches a view 
of reality as a whole that is certainly very characteristic and has 
a considerable amount of justification, but he is never able to 
look at it impartially and do justice to its various aspects. 
He exposes it to a glaring slant-light, whose sharp contrast 
effects, while exciting the emotions, yield a very one-sided and 
even distorted picture. 

Man, as Schopenhauer represents him, is a mere combination 
of crude natural propensities and over-refined but ineffectual 
spirituality. With his defencelessness both from outside foes 
and internal attack, he is like Prometheus bound to his rock. 
Schopenhauer recognises no reasonable will, no ethical person- 
ality, but only a blind desire. He can find no place for a move- 
ment from within, for a thorough regeneration of human nature 
through sorrow and love, through work and faith. Thus at 
every critical point he shows a poverty of spiritual content, and 
puts the soul under the dominion of an insatiable thirst for 
happiness, which can lead only, for well or for ill, to a final 
renunciation. 

Yet never would Schopenhauer have acquired the influence he 
has had if there had not been some other tendency at work in 
him, of a better and deeper kind. He possesses a tremendous 
energy of metaphysical conviction, which brings into clear 
consciousness the mysterious element in human existence and 
degrades the outer world of immediacy into a mere realm of 
appearance. He has given admirable expression to certain funda- 
mental ethical feelings. He is a great artist, not only in virtue 
of the fresh, transparent, penetrating quality of his style, but 
above all, in the skill with which he transforms all this mysteri- 
ously complex world into an ideal construction aesthetically de- 
signed. Everything becomes thereby ennobled and a counter- 
poise is provided to the weight of the real world which otherwise 
would crush man down and destroy all his initiative. Is it not 
true that, in virtue of this metaphysical, ethical, artistic contribu- 
tion, the spiritual life becomes vastly more active than Schopen- 
hauer's ideas, if taken strictly, would allow ? Is this not another 



518 THE MODERN WORLD 

instance of a man's thought being much wider and richer than 
his system ? 

The predominance of the negative element in Schopenhauer is, 
however, quite sufficient to explain why he was so slow in attain- 
ing recognition and influence. So long as a glad confidence in 
life prevailed, and men could overcome all opposition by sum- 
moning their spiritual energies to the task, Schopenhauer's sys- 
tem could not seem anything more than an odd piece of eccen- 
tricity. It was only when idealism had been worsted by realism 
and the limitations of realism had shortly afterward made them- 
selves felt — only when men's energies were relaxed and a spirit 
of doubt was abroad, that Schopenhauer's day came, that there 
was room for pessimism. As a protest, however, not only against 
passing tendencies, but against the main drift of modern culture, 
his work will not so easily become obsolete. 

III. THE MOVEMENT TOWARD REALISM 

In German speculation and in German Idealism generally we 
have the culmination, and at the same time the close, of a move- 
ment in which all civilised nations bore a part, but which in 
Germany was far more highly developed than elsewhere and 
conspicuously rich in creative genius. This movement was an 
immanental idealism, which sought to hold fast to the spiritual 
inwardness of the old religious view of life, but at the same time 
aimed at extending its range over the whole of human existence, 
thereby raising it to a higher level. On the other hand, right 
from the dawn of the modern era, there had been a counteracting 
influence at work, tending to concentrate all human activities 
within the immediate world of sense, and to fashion accordingly 
the life of man. Already in the eighteenth century this realistic 
movement was active both in England and France, and had 
achieved important results; but the peculiar conditions of life in 
Germany, tending as they did to encourage an intellectual and 
literary culture, militated against its success in that country. 
Thus when in the nineteenth century realism became the 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 519 

dominating influence in human culture, it was in Germany that 
the revolution was most keenly felt. It would be almost impos- 
sible to understand how, from being a nation of poets and think- 
ers, the Germans could so quickly assume the leadership in tech- 
nical and industrial matters, did we not remember that in yet 
earlier times they had shown themselves both strong and skilful 
in practical affairs, and that not till the Reformation had the 
stress been laid so predominantly on the development of the spir- 
itual faculties. However that may be, it is certainly in nineteenth 
century Germany that we have the most obvious instance of the 
suppression of the old order by the new, of idealism by realism. 

The shifting of the emphasis was particularly manifest in the 
years just before and after 1830. The natural sciences, in which 
the Germans had hitherto lagged behind, became now a leading 
force in the national life, and influenced its whole attitude 
toward the world. In 1826 Liebig set up in Giessen a chemical 
laboratory on a new model; and in the winter of 1827-1828, Alex- 
ander von Humboldt delivered in the University and the " Singa- 
kademie" at Berlin public lectures on physical cosmography, 
which were intended to attract a wider public toward the study 
of the natural sciences. The same period witnessed technical 
discoveries which immeasurably lessened the difficulties of inter- 
course, gave fresh impetus to economic production, and entirely 
revolutionised the conditions under which production had hith- 
erto been carried on. In 1827 there was the invention of the 
screw-propeller, which first made steam navigation an effective 
means of world communication; in 1830 the railway was in- 
vented. England here led the way, but the other nations were 
not slow to follow. At the same time, the July Revolution in 
Paris was sowing the seeds of similar movements in Germany as 
well as in the other European countries. The desire of the citi- 
zens for greater political freedom, for more share in matters of 
public concern, was never again to be lulled to sleep. From the 
economic point of view, the rise of Germany's power dates from 
January 1, 1834, the date of the establishment of the German 
"Zoll-und-Handelsverein." Meanwhile the giants of the previ- 



520 THE MODERN WORLD 

ous generation were passing away, without leaving any adequate 
successors. In 1827 Pestalozzi died; in 1831, Hegel; in 1832, 
Goethe; in 1834, Schleiermacher. Clearly one period was wan- 
ing and another dawning. And nowhere were the changes 
greater than in Germany. No nation had more difficulty in re- 
establishing the balance of its inward life. Still Germany only 
affords a particularly clear illustration of what was, after all, the 
common lot and common problem of all the civilised peoples. 

The new movement seeks to rivet man's interest entirely upon 
his environment ; his relationship to the environment is to deter- 
mine the whole course of his life and thought. The conception of 
the world is now influenced less by speculative philosophy than 
by the natural sciences. Attention is no longer directed so much 
to the cultivation of the individual mind through art and liter- 
ature as to the bettering of political and social relations. This 
involves a corresponding change of method. No longer, forget- 
ful of sense-existence, do men seek for undiscovered worlds in 
bold, imaginative flight; they must bide closely and faithfully 
by the matter in hand. Their procedure now bears the unmis- 
takable stamp of work. Hardly anything is so characteristic of 
the nineteenth century as the increased importance of work. It is 
true that great industry and diligence have been shown in other 
centuries also, and that even quite early periods offer remarkable 
examples of it. But in the nineteenth century, the character of the 
work itself changes very materially; it is no longer concerned 
with the inner life and aims of the individual, but is intimately 
bound up with a world of objects; it busies itself with the struct- 
ure, laws and necessities of this external world, and champions 
it victoriously as against man. It effects what is, perhaps, the 
greatest emancipation of the nineteenth century, an emancipa- 
tion from man, and makes him the mere pliant tool of its own 
unresting advance. As work thus assumes an independent 
status, it forms itself into complex organisations which assume 
gigantic proportions. This is true of industrial work with its 
great factories; of commerce, with its world-wide ramifications; 
and also of science with its growing tendency to specialise. The 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 521 

individual must find his place within these complex organisa- 
tions; he is insignificant and powerless so soon as he tries to sever 
himself from them. But the limitation of individual power 
means a corresponding increase in the collective capacity of man- 
kind. Nature reveals to advancing knowledge forces and con- 
nections hitherto undreamt of, and technical skill places them 
all at the service of man. Again, in man's own peculiar sphere, 
reason asserts itself more and more, and the irrational is elim- 
inated. Life gains in richness and variety. The organisation 
of labour makes it possible to deal with political and social prob- 
lems which hitherto had seemed quite intractable. 

Work, however, could not have become so potent and pro- 
ductive but for the support which it obtained through a strength- 
ening of the elemental bonds of reciprocity and tradition, through 
a growth of society and history. It is particuarly in this respect 
that the nineteenth century presents such a direct contrast to the 
eighteenth. For the eighteenth was mainly occupied with the 
emancipation of the individual from the general body of social 
ordinances, which, in the lapse of time, had become enslaving 
fetters. To authority and tradition it opposed the claims of the 
living present, and fell back for its defence upon a timeless reason. 
Already there had been protest and reaction even within the 
idealistic camp. Romanticists and philosophers alike had united 
to do honour to history, till, with Hegel, the revulsion of feeling 
had resulted in an almost dangerous exaggeration of the value of 
the State. But all the time, history and society had at the back 
of them a spiritual world; their value lay in the fact that they 
were expressions of this world, and not in any virtue of their 
own. Realism, however, drops all connections of an unseen kind, 
and finds in history and society, in their immediate practical 
aspect, the workshop in which all spiritual life is produced, the 
only sphere with which man has any concern. Our existence is 
stamped far more clearly than before as partly historical, partly 
social, and the near world at our feet, so often looked down upon 
with contempt by idealists, gains wonderfully in richness of con- 
tent and energy of movement. It is only because the philosoph- 



522 THE MODERN WORLD 

ical century was succeeded by one of predominantly historical 
and social interests that realism has been able to take over the 
guidance of life and fashion it in accordance with realistic 
standards. 

But what distinguishes modern realism from all previous 
movements of a realistic kind is its insatiable desire for suprem- 
acy, and its concern for positive results. The older realism was 
critical in nature, a movement or opposition, a reaction against 
accepted traditions of life; it was not an independent, con- 
structive force. Modern realism, on the other hand, aims at 
assuming the whole direction of life and shaping it to its own 
ends. It does not question the ideal requirements of humanity, 
but it reads them in a different sense, and in this sense hopes to 
be able to satisfy them completely. 

The aim and hope of this modern realism is to make life 
throughout truer, richer and stronger, by calling man away from 
his castles in the air and placing him on the solid rock of sense- 
experience. Life passes thus from a region of toying and trifling 
into a realm of truth, and gains fresh strength and coherency in 
readjusting itself to a resisting environment. This change in 
general attitude cannot fail to affect the various departments of 
life taken individually. This is quite obvious in the case of 
science, but it is not less true of religion, morality and art. 
The development of a positive system of religious belief is hardly 
possible for realism, limited as it is to the sphere of the visible 
world, but it seeks to understand religion, and is prepared to ad- 
mit it as a necessary phase and stage of human development. 
On the other hand, the new order of life naturally gives rise to 
fresh moral problems and incentives. Since work, the giver of 
insight, has as its basis the whole structure of historical and 
social relations, it exacts from individuals complete submission, 
glad readiness to sacrifice self in the interests of the whole, in- 
defatigable co-operation from each worker in his own appointed 
station. To raise the standard of general well-being now becomes 
the main end of action. The ethics of self-realisation gives place 
to the ethics of "altruism," of action for others. There is an 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 523 

ethical element too in that greater respect for the existing order 
which is exacted from the individual. While recognising the 
limitations of this order and resigning himself to much that is 
inevitable, he must still realise the energy and joy of work. 
Art also must adjust itself to the realistic mode of thought. It 
must not seek to portray new worlds, but rather content itself 
with teaching us a more accurate observation of reality as it is. 

A new life of this kind will naturally give rise to new ways of 
looking at life; nor need they lack variety, since the visible 
world has many different aspects, and we can, therefore, choose 
our own stand-point, and in particular allow either nature or 
society to dictate our general attitude. There are, accordingly, 
three main currents of thought: Positivism, seeking a recon- 
ciliation of nature and society; Evolution, introducing a new 
conception of nature, and social theories, particularly those of 
Social Democracy, demanding a regeneration of society. 

There is a solid support for these views of life in their close 
connection with the work of the period to which they belong. 
They also have the further advantage of keeping in close touch 
with immediate impressions, and so affect life more directly, and 
extend their influence more rapidly. It can scarcely be doubted 
that they contain and suggest much that is valuable even with 
regard to the broader issues of experience. But it is, neverthe- 
less, a crucial question whether they can make good their claim 
to supply unaided a complete theory of life and satisfy all human 
needs. Does not the attempt imply an intolerable degradation 
and restriction of human life ? Could it have achieved what it 
has done without borrowing largely from the very Idealism 
which it so vehemently attacks ? But we must first study these 
views in their own setting, endeavouring to show what new light 
they throw upon reality and what fresh stimulus they afford. 

(a) Positivism 

We are here taking Positivism in its larger meaning, including 
as Positivists all those thinkers who, from the stand-point of ex- 
perience, were anxious to keep nature and society together and 



5 2 4 THE MODERN WORLD 

equally emphasise both. In this way we can discuss men like 
Mill and Spencer, without imputing to them any relation of 
mere dependence upon the French Positivistic movement. 

(a) FRENCH POSITIVISM. COMTE 

The leading ideas of Positivism originate as far back as the 
eighteenth century, and are mainly traceable to English think- 
ers, but it is Comte's peculiar merit to have welded them together 
into a system and made them fully effective in every department 
of life. 

The essential meaning of Positivism is sufficiently indicated 
by its name : it is the strict limitation of thought, and also of life, 
to that which is "positive," i. e., to the world of immediate 
observation and experience. Every attempt to get behind this 
world and explain its constitution with reference to some other 
world appears hopeless from the outset, and no less foredoomed 
to failure is the endeavour to establish practical relations with 
another world. A limitation of this kind has in many ways a 
strongly negative implication. There is no room here for a relig- 
ion, with its belief in God and a future life. However true it 
may be that the sphere of our experience, being purely concerned 
with relations, cannot make up the whole of reality but must 
have something else behind it, yet the nature of this Beyond 
remains shrouded in impenetrable obscurity. We must, there- 
fore, give up all religion in the old sense of the term, and not only 
religion, but speculative thinking as well. For speculation also, 
with its ideas and principles, oversteps the limits of experience 
and leads us astray. By the portrayal of absolute ends, attain- 
able in one upward sweep, it excites in us vain hopes, useless 
agitation, and bitter disappointment. We must ask no longer, 
Whence ? and Whither ? but strictly limit our whole action — its 
aims and its methods — to the world immediately about us. 

This world, however, once rid of all illusions, becomes incom- 
parably more significant for both knowledge and action. The il- 
limitable network of relations, which is the aspect it now assumes, 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 525 

is no mere chaotic confusion; amid all the diversity of events 
there is uniformity in sequence as in co-existence, that is, con- 
formity to law. Each single event constitutes a particular case 
of a general law. To ascertain these uniformities, these laws, 
becomes the main task of science. It is true that they are no 
explanation, but merely a description, of events. Still the power 
to grasp in this way the fundamental features of the universe is 
not only a great gain in itself; it paves the way for effective 
action and ensures a higher standard of living. For to grasp the 
connections of things enables us to infer from one fact to an- 
other, and to foresee what will happen; and he who foresees can 
likewise calculate, and shape things to his own ends. Foresight 
is the lever of power. Thus theory and practice are but links 
in a single chain. The aim of all true knowledge is to see in 
order to foresee (voir pour prevoir). We may, accordingly, 
expect that the limitation of life to experience will result in a 
great increase of happiness and a satisfaction of all the essential 
requirements of our nature. We give up a visionary, and gain in 
return a real happiness. 

This limitation of life's sphere brings man back to his true 
position in the universe. It was only possible for us to transcend 
experience so long as we read our own nature into the universe, 
ordered it according to our wishes, made ourselves the centre of 
reality. Now this delusion must go; it is we who must accom- 
modate ourselves to the universe, and recognise that it is only 
through the development of our relations to the environment that 
we can use our powers rightly and hope for any true happiness. 

But, we may ask, is this simplification, this recognition of our 
limitations, anything so very new? Is it important enough to 
give rise to a whole new system of life ? A study of the past, a 
philosophical review of history, justifies us in answering Yes. 
For it shows most unmistakably that this enlightenment is only 
the culmination of a long process, that only very slowly has 
humanity moved from error toward truth. The process has 
been accomplished in three main stages: religious, metaphysi- 
cal and positive. When man, released from the pressure of 



526 THE MODERN WORLD 

physical needs, first began to think freely and venture to form 
a general picture of reality, he could not do otherwise than read 
into the universe human traits and human conditions — ascribe 
to things, just as children do, a life similar to man's, and, in a 
word, personify them. This is the stage of religious belief which 
considers the universe to be governed by gods resembling men, 
and is mainly concerned with the winning of their favour. This 
religious stage runs through several phases, varying from a crude 
fetichism to a refined polytheism — according to Comte, the 
highest type of religious belief — and so on to a theism, in which 
the sensuous and human element is already growing dim, and 
the transition to the metaphysical stage is beginning. At this 
stage abstract principles become increasingly potent, concepts 
such as reason, nature, purpose, force and so on. The grosser 
forms of anthropomorphism are overcome, but only to be fol- 
lowed by an anthropomorphism of a subtler and perhaps more 
dangerous kind. The struggle now centres round principles ; it 
is through the energetic pursuit of abstract ideas that men think 
to win happiness. At length this metaphysical stage with its 
revolutionary temper gives way to the positivistic belief, which 
had been slowly maturing for a long time, and at last in the nine- 
teenth century makes a bold bid for power. Positivism assigns 
the control of life to natural science, which, on its theoretical 
side, moulds our ideas, and on its technical side, our work, mak- 
ing possible for the first time a work which is really work, a 
purposive manipulation of the environment. There is still room 
for philosophy, but it is to be limited to the task of reducing the 
results of natural science to their most general expression, 
systematising them, and at the same time setting forth the 
general theory of true scientific method. 

The view of historical development which is here suggested is 
extremely one-sided and open to criticism. But rooted as it is 
in a unique conviction, which is maintained and developed with 
vigorous persistence, it puts things in a peculiar and often unex- 
pected light. Comte' s general view of history is in many ways 
akin to that of Leibniz. All progress is effected through a slow 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 527 

and continuous growth; the later stages are already implicit in 
the earlier; the changes that pass for revolutions are the product 
of a gradual development. Thus the possibilities of the present 
are strictly limited. We may not snatch with violent hand at the 
improvements which are reserved for some future age to effect. 
And yet no work is in vain ; even the most insignificant contribu- 
tion is an indispensable stone in the whole structure of history. 
It is intelligence which is the propelling power of the whole; the 
stage of development which it happens to have reached deter- 
mines the peculiar character of the work done and the form which 
life generally assumes. But whereas with Leibniz knowledge 
was an inward illumination, with Comte it is the right adjust- 
ment of our relation to the environment. Greater stress is thus 
laid on the relativity of things; we are more strongly urged to 
seize on the present and fulfil its demands. He alone can wield 
an effectual influence over his age who has accurately under- 
stood its peculiarities and adjusts his action accordingly. Comte 
finds the maxim as true for his own age as for its predecessors. 
Now Comte found already in existence certain positivistic 
tendencies which had been steadily growing during the past few 
centuries. His problem consists in bringing these to full self- 
consciousness, and elaborating them into a system. To this end, 
all relics of the previous stages, all such abstract ideas and ab- 
stract theories as are still in force, must be banished, and the new 
mode of thought introduced even into domains which have hith- 
erto been closed to it. Thus it becomes important to pass in re- 
view the various departments of science and ascertain what has 
been accomplished in each, and what is still lacking. Now 
Comte distinguishes five main disciplines : Astronomy, Physics, 
Chemistry, Biology, Sociology (a word newly coined) ; each dis- 
cipline standing in greater need of positivistic reconstruction than 
its predecessor in the series. Astronomy and Physics, under the 
guidance of Mathematics, are already in practical accord with 
the new requirements; Chemistry is still full of confused ideas 
and subjective explanations. Biology also, the main scientific 
contribution of the nineteenth century, is still in the making; but 



528 THE MODERN WORLD 

it is, above all, social life, the final and culminating stage of expe- 
rience, which awaits scientific treatment. Such treatment is 
indeed imperatively necessary, in view of the problems and com- 
plications of present-day life. 

Comte's description of this life refers primarily to the social 
condition of France during the bourgeois monarchy of Louis- 
Philippe, but it also applies to features which are common to the 
whole of the modern period. It is a lively and incisive piece of 
writing. The main source of all evils is intellectual disorder 
(desordre intellectuel). Each thinks as he wills and does as he 
likes. Egoism, material interests, political corruption find no 
adequate, counteracting force. There are no great unifying ideas : 
it is an age of half -beliefs and half -volitions. Life becomes shal- 
low, swayed as it is by the fugitive moment and the passing im- 
pression. Rhetorical and literary skill have far more influence 
than solid achievements. Whereas judges and scholars once 
took the lead in France, the ascendency now passes into the 
hands of lawyers and literati. It is true that technical work is 
ever on the increase, but man is very far from growing corre- 
spondingly in importance. As specialisation increases, the 
teachers become of very much less value than their teaching; 
the building is vastly more important than the architect. This 
condition of intellectual cleavage is unfavourable soil for art, 
since art cannot accomplish anything great so long as creator 
and recipient are not bound together by the tie of a common 
conviction. Religion again is chiefly concerned with inspiring in 
its adherents an instinctive and unconquerable hate toward 
those of a different persuasion. Moreover, the modern man is 
apt to regard religion as indispensable for other people, but 
superfluous for himself. Finally, political life suffers grievously 
from the fact that thought is tending in two different directions, 
conservative and progressive. Conservatism finds to-day its 
chief support in the traditional religious and metaphysical sys- 
tems of thought, systems which we have discarded from a scien- 
tific point of view, and are, therefore, bound to look upon as reac- 
tionary. The more modern convictions, on the other hand, 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 529 

which support the progressive ideas, are apt to assume a revo- 
lutionary character. Everything calls for the creation of a new 
social order. 

How, then, is this to be effected ? Comte, true to his convic- 
tion that all real progress is bound up with "intellectual evolu- 
tion," holds that science alone can give us help. Science brings 
all human life under the sway of positivist convictions, makes it 
understand itself, and yet links it more closely than ever with its 
environment. Before all else, the isolation and mutual hostility 
of men must be overcome. This can be best effected by aid of 
the concept of organism, understood not in the artistic sense 
with which Greek thought has familiarised us, but in the sense 
in which the natural sciences now employ it. An organic com- 
plex is an intricate combination of separate elements, intimately 
and inextricably woven together, and, for weal or woe, action or 
inaction, existing in closest mutual dependence. For this con- 
cept we are indebted chiefly to Biology, especially to the his- 
tological branch of it; but the highest form of organism is human 
society. For here the individual is so closely bound up with his 
fellows that he cannot even exist without them. There can be 
no development of human life apart from social intercourse. 
The condition of society determines the character and happiness 
of the individual. Even to his dreams and desires he is the 
creature of his environment, his social "milieu." It remains for 
Comte to take up this thought of society as an organism, and, by 
the help of modern science, work out its meaning more precisely 
and develop its implications more rigorously. The conscious- 
ness of being primarily a member of an organism must become 
more strong and insistent; it must strengthen the "altruistic" 
impulses in opposition to the egoistic, which are by no means 
altogether objectionable, though they usually make themselves 
too prominent. Each one should consider himself not a mere 
private individual, but a public official, and the rich man should 
feel himself to be the "trustee of the common property." Mod- 
ern industry, with its "systematic direction of man's activity to 
the external world," is philosophical in tendency; it demands 



53© THE MODERN WORLD 

a wider division of labour, and in so doing links men more 
closely together and strengthens the feeling of a universal 
solidarity. One of the main problems of government is to avoid 
the dangers of a division of labour, and, more especially, to see 
that each man is apportioned a position and a function suited to 
his capacities. If, however, social life is to be rescued from the 
fluctuating influences of the moment and the selfishness of party 
strife, there must be a division into temporal and spiritual power 
(pouvoir temporel et spirituel), just as there was in the mediaeval 
Catholic system, that "political masterpiece of human wisdom." 
The spiritual power must have direct control over education, 
and, by focussing it on essentials, save it from the changing cur- 
rents of political life; in every other department it must influ- 
ence only by counsel, by the exertion of its moral authority. 
Comte pictures this spiritual power as making Paris the centre 
of its activity, and establishing a permanent Council of the Posi- 
tivist Church, to which all civilised nations shall send delegates. 
Evidently, Positivism has become a kind of religion, a new faith 
(}oi nouvelle), a faith which replaces the idea of God by the idea 
of Humanity. This idea of Humanity, however, is not only the 
centre of religion, but of all ideal endeavour. Art, for instance, 
is to occupy itself mainly with portraying the feelings which are 
distinctively characteristic of human nature, anticipating in vivid 
colouring the hoped-for better future of man, and therewith sat- 
isfying his idealistic longings {besoin d'idealite). Again, the idea 
of the infinite progress of the species allows the individual an 
immortality which he could not have as a mere individual, for it 
means that his work is preserved and embodied in the whole. 
The final note is one of joy and hope; as society becomes more 
harmonious, material conditions improve, and nature is brought 
under greater control, humanity will become increasingly noble, 
increasingly worthy of veneration. 

Here, then, we have a comprehensive realism, a system ad- 
mirably worked out and thoroughly distinctive, even to its ter- 
minology. A large part of its influence it owes to its determin- 
ateness. It is, above all, original in its attempt to do justice to all 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 531 

human ideals and bring about a thorough regeneration of social 
conditions by the sole aid of a right understanding of experi- 
ence. Comte's best energies were devoted to this task. But he 
cannot be said to have been really successful. For a more accu- 
rate examination of his system never fails to show that in the 
course of his inquiry his main ideas develop into something more 
and other than they were at the outset, that, all unawares, they 
absorb just those idealistic ways of viewing and valuing things, 
which, as a pernicious delusion, were rigidly excluded from the 
general plan. Is it consistent with a strictly realistic system to 
raise humanity, the "great being" (le grand etre), to divine 
honour, or even to go so far as to weld humanity together into an 
organic whole which imposes exacting duties upon the indi- 
vidual? Can this realism so much as conceive any need for 
ideality and immortality? We can see again that Comte's 
thought has been undergoing a readjustment, we might even say 
a revolution, from the fact that his description of the pure actu- 
ality of human experience passes into a drastic criticism, an 
actual attempt at reform. When we come to the crucial point, 
the transition from knowledge to action, realism no longer 
trusts to its own resources; it is only with the help of idealism 
that it succeeds in surmounting this difficulty, and passing from 
the mere Is to an Ought. 

We are, moreover, bound to recognise a very grave discrep- 
ancy between the defects which Comte points out and the reme- 
dies he proposes.' He has portrayed the defects of our modern 
life with an impressiveness that carries conviction, but by way 
of remedy he can only propose that we should clear up our ideas 
and fall back upon an organisation which is much more old than 
new; for what he offers us is nothing else than the system of 
mediaeval Catholicism without its religion, as though it were quite 
a logical thing to accept the form, while rejecting the content. 
Comte has discovered weighty problems at the very heart of life, 
and has thought to solve them by mere changes of external ar- 
rangement. He affords a striking instance of that tendency, so com- 
mon among the French, to exaggerate the power of organisation. 



532 THE MODERN WORLD 

Moreover, Comte's main end — the establishment of a close 
relationship between the methods of science and of sociology — 
contains an implicit contradiction, which is really to a large ex- 
tent responsible for that shifting of stand-point to which we have 
just drawn attention. The more loyal we are to the methods of 
natural science, the more does our work become merely descrip- 
tive, a mere statement of that which is happening around us. On 
the other hand, when we come to deal with society, we find a very 
imperfect condition of affairs which calls loudly for reform; in 
this field, description cannot be the end, but only the beginning, 
of the work. A Positivism that desires to be a reforming move- 
ment is a self-contradiction. Indeed, the contradiction is not 
peculiar to Positivism. It affects the whole science of soci- 
ology, in so far at least as sociology attempts the twofold task of 
bringing social life under natural law and at the same time 
improving it. 

But, however much Comte may challenge criticism, he is yet 
a great and stimulating thinker. With marvellous energy he has 
woven together all the main threads of realistic thought, carried 
its leading ideas into every field of inquiry. He consistently ap- 
plies one distinctive method to the whole content of reality, and 
shows unerring skill in the framing and developing of his divi- 
sions. His system forms in certain respects a realistic counter- 
part to Hegel's : Comte's influence, like Hegel's, extends far be- 
yond the limits of his own school; it has affected the whole of our 
social life. There is much in Comte which cannot fail to strike 
us as extravagant; it is easy, too, to allow oneself to be repelled 
by the exaggerated self-consciousness which attends the exposi- 
tion of his doctrines. But we can reconcile ourselves to this in 
view of the fervid desire, the passionate longing for truth and 
happiness which breathes through all his work. Even though it 
involve the system in grievous complications and at length di- 
vert its founder from the course he had originally adopted, yet it 
forces us to recognise in him a great man, remarkable despite all 
his defects, a man to whom nothing human seemed strange or 
alien. 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 533 

Comte's theory of society and the social milieu would never 
have obtained a hearing so quickly nor exercised so wide an in- 
fluence had it not been accompanied by a more exact and de- 
tailed treatment of the same problem, such as we find for example 
in Quetelet. Quetelet's investigations open our eyes to the fact 
that the individual does not bring into society a definitely 
marked character, but rather is himself moulded by society. 
Through the observation of a large number of instances certain 
average values are detected — a certain order in the chaos — and 
even in the phenomena which are usually accredited to chance, 
regularity is found to prevail. We see how alike individuals are, 
despite all apparent deviations, how their differences are confined 
within a very narrow range. Everything points to the need of 
concentrating effort upon social matters, and thinking less of 
influencing the mere individual than of bettering the general 
conditions, though improvement of these would indirectly in- 
volve the happiness and success of the individual. Thus mod- 
ern science supports Positivism in its tendency to make the con- 
dition of society its main concern and to treat ethics as entirely 
social in character. 

(/3) ENGLISH POSITIVISM. MILL AND SPENCER 

Even though the plan of our work forbids us to describe in 
detail more than one from the group of Positivist thinkers, we yet 
must make some brief mention of the peculiarities of English 
Positivism. It is more firmly rooted than the French in national 
tradition, and has carried out its task of developing a compre- 
hensive system of thought on the sole basis of experience with far 
more quiet circumspection and more openness of mind toward 
impressions from without. Moreover, it has been preserved 
from the restraints and limitations of a hierarchical system like 
Comte's by that regard for freedom and individuality which, 
from of old, has characterised the Anglo-Saxon race. 

John Stuart Mill (1 806-1 873) was brought up in closest touch 
with the positivistic tendencies of that later phase of the En- 



534 



THE MODERN WORLD 



lightenment proper to the eighteenth and the early part of the 
nineteenth century. His life-work may be described as consist- 
ing primarily in the continuation and development of these tend- 
encies. His theory of knowledge and methodology do not so 
much contribute anything new in principle, as bring the tradi- 
tional empiricism into closer touch with the rapidly growing and 
ramifying progress of science. They present an acute analysis 
of the complicated processes of thought, and open up a wealth 
of new views and suggestions not only in the field of experimental 
inquiry, but also in politics and economics. On the political and 
practical side he was greatly influenced by the theories of men 
such as Bentham and Adam Smith, and it was with genuine 
enthusiasm that he seized upon the ideas of economic freedom 
and utilitarianism. Nor, in the course of his indefatigably active 
career did Mill ever formally break away from this school. But 
he had that rare order of mind which is kept by its thirst for 
truth in incessant activity and is ever impelled to put itself into the 
position of its opponent and make a constant study of his prin- 
ciples. In this way it came about that in many respects he al- 
tered or supplemented his own doctrine; in fact, that in certain 
important particulars he arrived without knowing it at conclu- 
sions directly opposed to the premises from which he had started. 
For example, the very foundations of the utilitarian doctrine are 
shaken by the expansion of the idea of utility to include even the 
striving after truth for truth's sake, as also by the essential dis- 
tinction drawn between intellectual and sensual pleasure. A 
warm sympathy with the actual living human being makes Mill 
increasingly inclined to mistrust any transmutation of economic 
life into a mere natural process, or any tendency to regard human 
labour in a commercial spirit; it induces him also to welcome 
state intervention more and more. His concern for freedom 
makes him keenly alive to the dangers which threaten it from 
the levelling influences of modern life and the increased power 
put into the hands of mediocrity, and it drives him to long earn- 
estly for more individual independence and greatness. "With 
little men you cannot do anything great." Finally, a sympathetic 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 535 

and unprejudiced experience of human conditions and destinies 
leads him further and further from his original optimism, and 
brings him into closer touch with religious feelings and reflec- 
tions. If then Mill often fails to reach a satisfactory conclusion, 
and does not think out his principles to the finish, yet not only 
does the inner sincerity of his effort merit our most genuine 
admiration, but his life-work is of great interest from another 
point of view : it illustrates the main respects in which the devel- 
oping life of the nineteenth century was driving men beyond the 
position which in the earlier half of the century had been held by 
the very people who felt, and had a right to feel, that they were in 
the vanguard of progress. 

When we turn to Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), we have, 
despite many points of likeness, a very different picture. In an 
age of incessantly increasing differentiation and specialisation 
he displays the most extraordinary energy in bringing the whole 
domain of knowledge under one dominating idea and thereby 
illumining it afresh. Now this idea is the idea of evolution, in 
the sense of the term peculiar to Spencer. For that only this 
special sense of the term is new, and not the idea of evolution 
itself, is perfectly patent to any one who has even a slight acquaint- 
ance with German Idealism. Whereas hitherto "evolution" 
has always been used in a metaphysical context, it is now, quite 
in accordance with realistic ideas, based upon experience and 
developed in an original way under the influence of natural 
science. The one universal fact, leading to a complete unification 
of knowledge, is evolution — as integration of matter and dissi- 
pation of motion. This alternates unfailingly with a period of 
dissolution, marked by absorption of motion and disintegration 
of matter. The evolutionary period is characterised by a change 
from homogeneity to heterogeneity, a progressive specialisation 
and differentiation, beginning from the universe as a whole and 
proceeding to the heavenly bodies, to human society, to civili- 
sation, to the individual. In the period of dissolution the reverse 
order is observed. Through all transformations, however, force 
persists unchanged under its two forms, matter and motion, 



536 THE MODERN WORLD 

though its real nature remains wholly unknowable. The intro- 
duction of these main ideas into the various departments of 
thought yields much that is new and suggestive; but all our 
appreciation of Spencer's logical industry cannot blind us to the 
fact that he is presenting his subject-matter in schematic form 
rather than casting fresh light on it, and that, throughout, the 
content of reality receives from him a much too summary treat- 
ment. The generalisations in which he indulges have the effect of 
changing the world into a realm of pale shadows and phantoms. 
In the practical field he shows more life and vigour; he is indeed 
the most uncompromising champion of complete individual 
freedom. How to reconcile this with the idea of an evolution 
conforming to natural law is not quite easy to see. But whatever 
our attitude may be toward Spencer's method and results, the 
fact remains that he has reinterpreted the whole realm of 
knowledge in the light of certain convictions of his own, and, 
by this construction of a completely comprehensive system, has 
won a unique place among English philosophers. 

(b) Modern Science and the Theory oj Evolution 

The main features characteristic of our modern science were 
already familiar to the seventeenth century; the nineteenth 
century has only to fill in the sketch which was then so boldly 
outlined. Such a mere outline, however, was too abstract to 
allow of the scientific view of the world becoming part of the 
general scheme of life. In particular, the Golden Age of Ger- 
man poetry and speculation was so full of the dignity of man 
and so exclusively occupied with fostering it, that nature came 
to be regarded merely as a background. Take, for instance, a 
system like Hegel's, which treats spiritual life and man's spiritual 
life as interchangeable equivalents, and maintains that the Abso- 
lute Spirit realises itself in human history; would such a system 
be conceivable save from a geocentric stand-point? Now the 
advance of Realism changes all this. Natural science, from 
being one particular province, becomes co-extensive with the 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 537 

whole realm of thought. All the changes which the work of 
previous centuries have effected in our conception of the visible 
world at last become fully operative upon the convictions of 
mankind. And the changes were many : far-reaching modifica- 
tions had taken place in that older outlook which had seemed so 
convincing to medievalism and even to the Reformation, which 
had become so closely interwoven, too, with religious ideas. 
Even the change in our way of regarding the external world 
reaches much further than we are wont to admit. While the 
earth was still regarded as the centre of a finite universe and the 
action of man could determine the fate of the whole, his signifi- 
cance and the significance of humanity in general was bound to 
be incomparably greater than when he became merely the inhabi- 
tant of an apparently not very considerable fixed star in the 
measureless tracts of space, and when, consequently, from the 
point of view of the universe, the whole sphere of his life dwindles 
to a tiny point. There is, however, just as much change in the 
inward as in the outward view of nature. Once she had seemed 
to be filled and even dominated by quasi-psychical forces, and 
human life had moved within a sphere that was inwardly akin 
to itself, enjoying friendly intercourse with its environment; but 
now the new knowledge has robbed her of her soul, thereby 
alienating her from man. At first, it is true, the dualistic way of 
thinking that had been characteristic of the Enlightenment made 
it possible to mark off a separate sphere, wherein the inward life 
might develop freely, but as the mighty kingdom of nature devel- 
oped more and more and drew man to itself by myriad threads 
of connection, this sphere was constantly encroached on, till at 
last its very existence was threatened. More and more irresist- 
ibly was man assimilated to nature, more rigorously subjected 
to her laws; more inevitably was his soul transformed into a mere 
aggregate of mental processes, into a mere helpless part of the 
world-machinery. 

This change in the relation of man to his environment has been 
brought about mainly by the idea of evolution. This idea has 
had a curious history. It is quite foreign to the main tendencies 



538 THE MODERN WORLD 

of classical antiquity, whose artistic creed demands that the fun- 
damental constitution of the world, and in particular its organic 
forms, should be unchangeable. All the changes we experience 
are here attributed to a rhythmic movement in the life of the uni- 
verse, which, in continual ebb and flow, is ever returning to its 
starting-point. Christianity, with its assertion of the uniqueness 
of the world's history, was bound to reject the idea of periodicity 
and the endless repetition of worlds. In the place of this concep- 
tion, religious thought elaborated a doctrine of development 
which regarded the whole world with all its multiplicity as the 
unfolding, the "unwrapping" of the divine Unity, as the tem- 
poral manifestation of eternal Being. Following upon this 
religious doctrine of development there came, with the modern 
tendency toward pantheism, an artistic doctrine, which repre- 
sents the universe as a whole, growing from within outward and 
attaining ever to more perfect self-expression. This is the view 
of Schelling and Goethe. Both doctrines gave the visible world 
an invisible setting. The world, far from sustaining its own 
development, was merely the arena in which forces of a deeper 
order came into play. 

Now our modern science with its exact methods has entirely 
reversed all this. What is produced within experience is con- 
ceived as the product of forces which are themselves active within 
experience. Being is explained by Becoming, by its historical 
genesis; the advance of the world is held to be due not to the 
action of any transcendent, external Power, but solely to the 
clash of elemental forces. Such a conception places the doctrine 
of evolution in direct opposition to all explanations which pro- 
ceed on the assumption of an unseen and supernatural order. 

In the very first sketch of a scientific cosmology — that given 
by Descartes — we are introduced to the idea of a gradual build- 
ing up of the world from very simple beginnings by the forces 
inherent in nature herself, an idea developed later along sounder 
lines by Kant and Laplace. Modern Psychology from Locke 
onward had strenuously sought to understand the psychical life 
of the individual as a gradual growth and progress from small 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 539 

beginnings. Nor was there in the eighteenth century any dearth 
of attempts to view the historical status of man in the light of its 
own development, without passing beyond the limits of experi- 
ence or having recourse to any religious or metaphysical assump- 
tions. But, until well into the nineteenth century, this attempt 
to apply the genetic method consistently was checked by one 
serious obstacle, the apparently unchangeable and underivable 
character of organic species. An impassable limit seemed here 
to be set to a strictly scientific explanation of reality. Anthro- 
pomorphic ideas and love of the marvellous could always retreat 
upon this ground and find there a safe asylum. Thus when men 
like Lamarck and Darwin extended the method to organic 
species, it affected profoundly the whole conception of the uni- 
verse. Darwin, who carried the matter to a victorious issue, 
brings together, as is well known, two main ideas: on the one 
hand, there is the more general assertion of a gradual develop- 
ment of organic life from certain primitive types, the introduc- 
tion of the historical explanation into the realm of organic nature, 
in short, the doctrine of descent; and, on the other hand, there 
is the more detailed specification of the ways and means of 
development, the theory of natural selection, namely, involving 
the ceaseless conflict of all created forms in the struggle for 
existence, the survival of the fittest through the persistence and 
accumulation of such variations as favour survival, and the ex- 
planation of highly purposive forms without reference to any 
conception of purpose. This more detailed exposition makes the 
general idea of a gradual evolution far more vivid and convincing. 
We are not concerned here with the theory in its scientific 
aspect, but merely as it affects our attitude toward life. From 
this point of view it is of paramount importance to keep the two 
stages of the doctrine clearly distinct. It is mainly the theory 
of natural selection that has ventured to come forward with a 
new and original view of life. By completely assimilating man 
to nature, it leaves the shaping of man's life with the forces 
which appear to control the formation of natural types. Life is 
thereby robbed of all that had given it inner worth and dignity; 



540 THE MODERN WORLD 

the form which it takes is determined solely by circumstance and 
is maintained only in so far as it proves serviceable in the struggle 
for existence. Advance is only made when properties which 
chance has brought together are maintained on account of their 
usefulness, inherited, and in the course of time wrought into the 
species. But since there can be no inward appropriation of this 
gain, there can also be no joy in the good and the beautiful for 
their own sake; all we win is simply an added means of self- 
preservation. We have already seen in Adam Smith the effect 
of a doctrine of mere utility in lowering the status of the inward 
life, and here we see it in its extreme form. The inward life loses 
all independent value. The only right is the right of the stronger; 
all humaneness, in particular all care for the weak and suffering, 
would simply take the heart out of the struggle, and therefore be 
a piece of pernicious folly. If in this blind medley of conflicting 
forces there be anything at all left for us to do, it can only be to 
make the struggle for existence as hard, persistent and ruthless 
as we can, so that all the unfit may be weeded out and the process 
of selection be made as speedy as possible. 

All this, indeed, only ensues when we think the theory out to 
its logical conclusion, as its supporters rarely do. For, all un- 
seen, persuasions of another sort steal in and cause them to re- 
gard this inward revolution quite differently, to look upon it as 
an emancipation from a stifling narrowness of view, to welcome 
it as ennobling human life. All unawares, these new ideas are 
transplanted into an atmosphere which has been saturated, 
through the efforts of centuries past, with spiritual values, and 
they absorb from this atmosphere just what suits them. Only 
through being supplemented in this way do they succeed in 
yielding even a tolerable presentation of life and in blinding us to 
the fact that it cannot be other than absolutely senseless, if it be 
fashioned as they suggest. For all the toil and struggle, the la- 
bour of centuries, the growth of civilisation, could not hope to 
make the inward man one whit better, or extend in any way the 
borders of reason. All effort would be concentrated on produc- 
ing ever stronger individuals, creatures better adapted to the 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 541 

struggle for existence. But who is to profit by this existence, 
that causes so much trouble and claims such sacrifice of life? 
No one gains by it, neither the survivor nor any one else. Noth- 
ing is won despite all the effort, save what was given already at 
the outset in a far more convenient form. This refusal to see in 
the theory of natural selection the master-key to the problem of / 
life in no wise robs it of all importance. It still remains true that 
it was the first effective means of bringing home to men the in- 1 
fluence of environment in moulding the inward life, and the 
cumulative effects of small changes operating during long peri- 
ods of time. But all this needs to be put into a larger setting, if 
it is to serve truth and not error. 

In natural science, at the present day, the theory of natural 
selection is being confined within ever narrower limits, so that it 
can hardly claim to supply a guiding principle for the whole of 
life. But it is very different with the more general idea of the 
theory of descent. Since this is establishing itself more and 
more firmly in the domain of science, the general philosophy of 
life is bound to come to terms with it, no less than it did with 
Copernicus, and, in so doing, to be considerably influenced by it. 
The extension of the historical method to the treatment of organic 
forms not only makes change the law of the whole universe; it 
also draws man nearer, knits him more closely, to nature. For 
the genetic explanation cannot possibly apply to the whole of 
nature and then suddenly break down at man. But to admit 
this does not compel us to accept a doctrine of fickle relativity 
or a naturalism that is a foe to spiritual life. For if the organic 
species are developed gradually, they cannot be the mere casual 
result of a chance collision of the elements; their formation may 
involve timeless conformity to law. That which now appears at 
one particular point may, nay, must have been potentially pres- 
ent in the system as a whole. It is not movement in itself that is 
destructive, but only movement that is controlled by no inward 
law. The recognition of a movement in which fixed laws prevail 
does not lower our conception of nature, but gives it greater dig- 
nity; it does not indeed solve the problem of origins, but it dis- 



542 THE MODERN WORLD 

tributes it over a wider area and takes away its magical charac- 
ter. Moreover, the closer approximation of man to nature may 
have diametrically opposite results according to the meaning 
which we give to his life. If there be nothing essentially new in 
it, if its inward forces do not lift it above the level of nature, then 
the forging of that closer connection must end in naturalising it 
completely. On the other hand, if in man we recognise a new 
stage of reality, an independent spiritual life, then his closer 
connection with nature can only have the effect of lifting nature, 
giving her a deeper basis, making her part of a larger system. 
I In this case, man is not lowered through nature, but nature is 
lifted through man. So, generally, it is not natural science that 
leads us into naturalism, but the weakness of our spiritual con- 
victions, the suspicion that there is perhaps no spiritual exist- 
ence at all : this it is that enables a popular philosophy to twist 
natural science into a materialistic naturalism. Here, as else- 
where, our final verdict does not depend upon individual facts, 
but on the systems into which they have been woven, the char- 
acter of the whole life to which they are adjusted, the nature of 
the inward process which informs outward experience and gives 
it its significance. 

(c) Modern Sociology. Social Democracy and Its View of Life 

We must beware of identifying modern sociology and the 
social democratic movement. Still it was undoubtedly the in- 
creased influence of social life over the work and the valuations of 
the nineteenth and the latter part of the eighteenth century that 
paved the way for the efforts of Radicalism to set up a new social 
order, and put the Radical movement upon a broader founda- 
tion. A continually increasing number of people were grounding 
their whole philosophy of life on the basis of the social conditions 
which they either found already about them or themselves 
sought to establish. There was Adam Smith, for instance, and 
again Bentham's (i 748-1 830) utilitarian movement, which 
made the greatest happiness of the greatest number its dominat- 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 543 

ing principle, and judged of all action by the way in which it 
served this end, that is to say, by its outward effect and not by 
its inward quality. Open to attack as this fundamental idea 
undoubtedly is, Utilitarianism has yet done good service. It 
broke up old and out- worn systems, won more freedom of move- 
ment for the individual, and introduced more charity and toler- 
ance into social and international relations. But though these 
early social reformers found much in the traditional ordering of 
society that called for criticism and change, yet they never 
dreamt of interfering with its fundamental structure. It seemed 
to them that a close, faithful adhesion to natural forces and in- 
stincts would inevitably result in the victory of reason. It was 
not necessary, they thought, to found a new order, but simply to 
remove the obstructive elements of the old. At the same time, 
they looked upon the middle classes as the chosen representa- 
tives of the collective social interest. In all these respects the 
nineteenth century effects a profound and far-reaching change. 
Louder and louder becomes the demand for a completely new 
order of society, such as cannot proceed from a gradual reform, 
but only from revolution of a drastic kind. The movement 
passes from a stage of chaos and confusion, such as is revealed 
in the doctrines of Saint-Simon, to a perfectly elaborated system 
such as we find more particularly in the German Social Democ- 
racy. It is then only this latter movement that need concern 
us here. 

Socialism — we are thinking more especially of the meaning 
given to it by Marx — is particularly zealous in its championship 
of the conviction which ever since Adam Smith's day has been 
gradually permeating modern life: the conviction, namely, that 
the whole character of life is determined by economic relations, 
by the way in which wealth is acquired and distributed, and that 
whether our existence shall be rational or otherwise depends on 
the way in which this problem is solved. We are given a scien- 
tific formulation of the socialist doctrine in a materialistic, or 
rather economic, philosophy of history. Here the economic 
struggle is regarded as the one propelling force of history. Even 



544 THE MODERN WORLD 

religious systems, such as Christianity, or revolutionary move- 
ments like the Reformation, did not originate in any longing for 
spiritual things, but in the desire of the down-trodden masses for 
improved conditions of life. The ideas were merely tools, or 
reflexes, of economic changes. On this view, the supreme goal 
is the improvement of economic conditions, and the whole worth 
of life varies according as these conditions are reasonable or the 
reverse. 

In one important point, however, Social Democracy effects a 
complete break with the older realism: it transforms the crass 
optimism which had characterised the older movement into an 
equally crass pessimism. Adam Smith fully expected that the 
complete emancipation of the individual and perfect freedom of 
industrial competition would have the happiest effect on the 
constitution of social life. What he saw in the struggle was 
mainly the greater freedom and power of the individual; the 
movement as a whole he viewed as a steady progress to higher 
and yet higher levels. The more detailed description of economic 
life was likewise full of optimistic assumptions. It never occurred 
to any one that the transformation of existence into a mere com- 
plex of natural forces would act prejudicially upon the inward 
life. 

The revulsion from this point of view was mainly due to the 
radical changes which had taken place in economic life during 
the nineteenth century. It is no longer so simple and innocent 
as it was. Work stands at the mercy of the machine and the 
wholesale producer. The annihilation of distance facilitates the 
speed with which movements in different places affect each other, 
and thus renders the economic struggle visibly more acute. The 
tool, and with it the nature of the work, is always being altered. 
Gigantic combinations of capital and labour have arisen. Thus 
we are landed in the most grievous complications; opposing 
forces meet and clash with superhuman force and passion. 

But great as these changes are, they would never have been so 
violent in their effect had they not been taken up into more 
inward movements and borne forward on their stream. Since 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 545 

Adam Smith's day, the subject had grown in importance, the 
subject, too, of immediate experience, man in his actual feelings 
and enjoyments. This subject becomes more keenly interested 
in relating his experiences to his own welfare and computing his 
share of happiness and enjoyment. Moreover, it is not a few 
favoured classes that make their voice heard, but the great 
mass of the people. Thus general dissatisfaction prevails and 
a tendency to view the existing situation in the gloomiest light. 
There is a disposition to dwell upon abuses; if anything un- 
pleasant is discovered, it is at once generalised and painted in 
most lurid colours. The whole picture is conceived in the 
gloomiest vein. 

At the same time the difficulties are intensified by the tend- 
ency to treat all questions as universal, as matters of principle, 
a tendency quite in accordance with the whole trend of the 
modern period, and more especially associated in the nineteenth 
century with Hegel. For those who think in this way, all ques- 
tions merge in one large question, and work thereby with vastly 
increased power. The very expression "social question" at 
once stamps the whole existing order as problematic. These 
gigantic combinations of thought exert an independent power 
and authority before which anything that can be done by indi- 
vidual resource and good-will vanishes into nothingness. They 
push their logical development to its extremest issue; they carry 
their point and none can gainsay them. Capital and labour here 
stand out as two most deadly foes. Capital — meaning chiefly 
capital in money — shows an ineradicable tendency to grow in 
power and importance and degrade labour more and more to a 
condition of slavery. What gives added bitterness and passion 
to the conflict is the assertion that the capital has not been hon- 
estly earned, but is stolen from the worker. 

To abolish capital and make labour supreme would, it is held, 
introduce a change which would be entirely for the better, and 
wholly revolutionise the existing order. Such a change is con- 
fidently expected on the ground that historical development 
follows the dialectical method. According to Marx, the"capi- 



546 THE MODERN WORLD 

talist phase" is "the first negation of the individual, of private 
property acquired by personal labour." This negation will be 
itself negated through the inward development of the dialectical 
movement, and through transcendence of the oppositions a 
higher stage will be reached. 

If pessimism was the prevailing note in descriptions of the 
existing order, this higher stage is portrayed with a correspond- 
ing optimism, as delightful as the pessimism was gloomy. The 
installation of work in its true position, the regulation of all 
social relations from the point of view of the whole, the impartial 
providing for all individuals alike, will, it is thought, give com- 
plete happiness and satisfy even ideal needs. Society is now 
regarded as an organic system, the source of ethical energy. So 
long as it remains democratic, it is thought that it may safely 
increase in power without in any way imperilling individual 
freedom. Often — especially in Lassalle — there is an idealising 
of the people, a disposition to think more highly of the man 
whose lot is cast in a lowly station. Rousseauism revives. Man 
is at heart good and unspoilable. Bad social arrangements are 
responsible for all the evil. If we allow all individuals to develop 
their powers freely, we shall insure the victory of reason. The 
general level of life will be infinitely higher, and we shall have 
better, happier, "all-round" men, a loftier ideal of education, 
family life, and so on. In short, the old Utopian dreams revive 
amid all the realism of the age. Naturally, there is the less 
room for religion. It is apt to be summarily rejected as a mere 
invention in the interests of the privileged classes, and complete 
misunderstanding prevails as to its true nature and historical 
working. 

It is no part of our present task to discuss the technical aspect 
of this doctrine. Taken as a whole, it is a movement which we 
cannot afford to treat lightly, if only for the reason that it sets in 
a clear though prejudiced light the far-reaching changes which 
labour has undergone and the exceedingly complicated character 
of the economic struggle. At the same time it raises important 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 547 

problems, which we cannot easily forget now that they have 
been so ably put and have become so wrought into the general 
consciousness. It is not easy to overlook the request for a wider 
diffusion of mental and spiritual culture, for a larger individual 
share in the collective profits of the community. He who cannoT] 
detect in it a note of idealistic aspiration, he who never feels it 
to be a crying pity that only so few should be given the oppor- I 
tunity for a full development of their spiritual powers, will never I 
be able to appreciate this movement at its true worth. It is a 
movement which, in many respects, is only the extreme expres- 
sion of tendencies which characterise the whole of the nineteenth 
century. The whole period is influenced by this firm belief in 
the omnipotence of political and social arrangements. The 
state of society has become the all-important problem. Every' 1 
one thinks that if only the programme of his particular party is 
strictly carried out, mankind will become perfectly happy and 
virtuous. There is not nearly so much scope as formerly for the 
free play of the individual. The concern for a freedom within 
the state is so great as to make men almost forget that there is a 
freedom which can assert itself against the state. Moreover, 
with the progress of a highly complex civilisation, material goods 
have increased in importance and value. Socialism seizes on 
these tendencies, brings them to a point, and aggressively uses 
them for the furthering of its own cause. In virtue of the unify- 
ing work it accomplishes, and the appeal it makes to the 
whole man, it wields an authority which the ordinary vacillating 
temper that is driven helplessly this way and that can never hope 
to obtain. 

With the socialist solution we must indeed join issue. From , 
the philosophical point of view it merits the sharpest criticism. 1 
All thought and all effort are made to serve the one end of 
satisfying the loud demand of the masses for a larger share of 
power and happiness, and the scope of human experience is thus 
unduly narrowed. Socialism, by eagerly seizing and using every- 
thing that promises to further its main end, takes up and masses 
together quite uncritically the most diverse and even contra- 



548 THE MODERN WORLD 

dictory systems. Materialism and sensualism of the shallowest 
kind find favour because they seem to be most thoroughly sub- 
versive of the traditional religion, and yet these movements in 
themselves, being products of an over-ripe civilisation, are cer- 
tainly not adapted to the task of fostering enthusiasm for new 
ideals. Rousseau is valued because he has glorified the people 
and proclaimed the rights of man, but the romantic, sentimental 
feeling which prompted his effusion is now remote indeed. 
Hegel again finds recognition in so far as Socialism seems to 
gather assurance of victory from his doctrine of history as a 
dialectical movement advancing through one opposition to an- 
other. That this conviction implies a transformation of the 
world into a process of thought, and so into an inner life, is hardly 
so much as suspected. 

This confusion of naturally antagonistic systems is sufficient 
to show that Socialism never goes deep enough, and it fails to do 
so simply because it forms a wrong conception of the main prob- 
lem of human life. This problem, as Socialism conceives it, is 
how best to order social relations, and particularly how to dis- 
tribute economic wealth. If these relations be revolutionised, 
then it is expected that existence generally will become reason- 
able and happy, and human life attain an ideal form. An expec- 
tation of this kind, however, implies certain peculiar convictions 
concerning the life and happiness of man, which run directly 
counter to the experience of history. 

If a particular kind of social environment is to make man com- 
pletely virtuous, then there must be no spiritual complexities in 
his nature. If the new order is to satisfy completely all his wishes, 
then these must limit themselves to restricted hours of work and 
emancipation from the cares of gaining a livelihood. Now with- 
out subscribing to any doctrine of a Fall and the corrupt nature 
of man, we can yet see that his being is involved in a serious, 
spiritual complexity. Man transcends nature once and for all, 
and begins to rise toward the higher plane of the spiritual life, 
i. e., an inner life that has its world within itself. This new life 
makes new claims upon his feeling. It demands work, surren- 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 549 

der, even sacrifice, for ends outside the sphere of his individual 
interest. But on the other hand, the increased intelligence and 
power which accompany this transition intensify the natural 
instinct of self-preservation till it becomes an unrestrained, de- 
structive egoism, a boundless lust for possession, enjoyment and 
dominion. Thus opposing forces keep us in constant tension: 
fateful decisions are forced upon us. A moral opposition per- 
vades and dominates the whole of our lives, not, perhaps, in the 
form depicted by theological dogmas and philosophical specu- 
lations, but revealed to us none the less in our most inward and 
intimate experiences. Anything that tends to obscure or weaken 
this opposition lowers and relaxes our inmost nature, however 
stirring and stimulating its outward effects may be. It is very 
apt to produce a result exactly opposite to that which it in- 
tended, since it diverts the attention and industry from the very 
point where they are most particularly needed. Even from 
remotest times there have been theorists who expected a com- 
plete social regeneration to ensue from the abolition or restric- 
tion of the divisions between classes. More than two thousand 
years ago Aristotle met them with the objection that the com- 
plication goes deeper than they think, that the worst crimes are 
not the result of need, but of wantonness and a "greed for 
more," and that even though a new social regime might remove 
or remedy certain defects, it would be sure to introduce or 
strengthen others. 

And if morality cannot be treated as a mere corollary to the 
social problem, no more can the problem of happiness be solved 
by the freedom we are promised from material cares and wor- 
ries. As certainly as man is a spiritual being, and just in pro- 
portion as he is spiritual, that goal can never suffice him. All the 
material comfort would only mean emptiness of soul. As a 
spiritual being, he cannot reconcile himself to a life devoid of 
content, and such content he can only find by going back upon 
his fundamental relation to reality, making the world his own 
by an act of spiritual appropriation, grounding his life and his 
whole being in a realm of truth and love. But in doing this, he 



55© THE MODERN WORLD 

gives the primary place to those very problems which the social- 
istic view of life regards as secondary. 

We thus find ourselves unable to accept what is most charac- 
teristic in Socialism. But we must not fail to recognise that there 
is much more in the movement than can be confined within this 
narrow framework. Side by side with the ordinary craving for 
happiness, there is a longing for a higher development of man 
.as man, for an ennoblement of human existence. That which 
gives real power to the whole movement, quite independently of 
any particular party-doctrine, is the desire which to-day is per- 
meating human life more and more, the desire of the masses for 
[a larger share of happiness and of goods not merely temporal, 
.but also spiritual. The path this desire will take depends largely 
on the answer to another question. Will humanity, in all the 
'" commotions and upheavals of the age, find the strength which is 
requisite for spiritual concentration and a regeneration of the 
inward life ? Then and then only can the movement be guided 
by reason. Otherwise it must fall a prey to sinister passions and 
prove itself a destructive foe to all genuine culture. 

There are great differences between the various schools of 
realistic thought. In certain important respects, indeed, they 
stand in directly antithetic relations to each other. But, despite 
all their differences, they have one fundamental point of likeness, 
and that is their way of regarding life. For them, its main rela- 
1 tionship is its relationship to the world, to the sense-environment 
of nature and society. To understand nature and subdue her 
to the purposes of man, to free society from the blemishes which 
have been sanctioned by tradition, and to help all its members 
to attain as much happiness as they can — this seems to the real- 
ists the highest and the supremely satisfactory goal of human 
endeavour. It is easy enough for them to win the sympathy of 
their contemporaries for this belief of theirs, because it simply 
states as a matter of philosophical principle the persuasion which 
is actually dominating the life of the period. Moreover, it does 
not presuppose any complex hypotheses, but works apparently 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 551 

with quite obvious and intelligible data. This fact is very 
favourable to its advance, especially at a time when the masses 
are pressing eagerly forward and boldly venturing an answer to 
the most difficult and ultimate questions. From this point of 
view we may regard the struggle of realism with the traditional 
idealism as a collision between the living present and the dead 
past, and therefore the most radical methods would seem to be // 
the best. 

But though its elevation to the rank of a philosophical prin- 
ciple may strengthen the position of realism, it at the same time 
leads to the recognition and realisation of its limitations. It 
makes it increasingly obvious that realism's most dangerous 
foe is not the traditions of the past, but the fact of our immediate 
life as it springs up anew in each one of us. In the light of this 
we cannot but regard as a stupendous error the attempt to con- 
struct the inward life from without, to make reality an external 
world, and consequently to change man's relation to himself 
into a merely outward relation. In last resort, even the under- 
standing of nature and the fashioning of society are matters of 
inward experience, and the denial of this experience would in- 
volve the collapse of realism. If realistic systems succeed in 
reaching a passable conclusion, despite their repudiation of an 
independent inward life, that is merely because, all unobserved, 
they draw upon idealistic resources to supplement their own 
deficiencies, and indeed do so the more in proportion as they 
approximate more closely to complete systems. Remove their 
supports, and they soon lose coherency and reveal their emptiness 
and dearth of meaning. Man's soul is a fact: who can deny it? 
It is, indeed, the fundamental fact which must take precedence 
of all others. If it can allow itself and its problems to be over- 
looked for a time, yet it will not be ignored for ever. It will again 
and yet again assert itself as the most important thing and claim 
its due place in the whole scheme of life. Realism can attract 
men only so long as their thoughts are dwelling on certain 
isolated points and they are not trying to frame any picture of 
the whole. If once they should ask what is the purport of life as 



552 THE MODERN WORLD 

a whole, what sense and meaning can it have, then the realistic 
conception of it will soon prove to be unsatisfactory past all 
bearing. What it offers us in the way of knowledge of the world 
and happiness for man will never stand the test of being looked 
at in relation to the whole. If this that it offers were really all, 
there would be nothing left us but gloomy resignation and utter 
despair. It is also a noteworthy fact that the most important 
realistic philosophers, the great positivists themselves, Comte, 
Mill and even Spencer, the soberest of them all, were in their 

i later years unable to stifle the doubts that persistently rose within 
them. Comte was compelled to give his thought a fresh devel- 
opment; Mill and Spencer were both haunted by the presence of 
an unsolved problem, and their position with regard to religion 
underwent in consequence a far-reaching modification. 

Thus to dispute the supremacy of realism does not imply any 
denial of its significance, or any failure to recognise the changes 
which it has wrought in life, and which will have to be taken 
into account by all succeeding developments. It links man 
much more closely with his natural and social environment, and 
consequently changes in essential respects the conditions which 
regulate his life and his creative work; his peculiar temperament 
and limitations are of much more consequence than formerly. 
His life is no longer a process of peacefully unfolding an already 
given content, but the content has to be acquired through hard 
struggle against resistance and gradual overcoming of opposi- 
tion. Realism, moreover, inspires the desire no longer to limit 
spiritual privileges to the favoured few, but so far as possible to 

I bring them within the reach of every member of the human fam- 
ily. With an ideal such as we have described, and a still wider 
range of suggestive influence, realism may well serve as the 
forerunner of a truer and purer idealism. But this happy rela- 
tion between the two schools is still far from being realised. 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 553 

IV. THE REACTION AGAINST REALISM 

The realistic movement of the nineteenth century had com- 
pletely revolutionised the old ideals. But from its first inception 
the movement contained the germs of a reaction against its own 
tendencies. The century had found its true greatness in work. 
It was through work that man seemed to achieve happiness and 
realise his proudest ambitions. But work itself was found to 
obey the inward dialectic of all human undertakings; its very 
development revealed its limitations and threatened to stultify 
the purpose which it was originally intended to realise. In pro- 
portion as the work became more complicated and differen- 
tiated, and more rapid in its processes, did the individual tend to 

/ become a mere inept feature in a soulless routine : his sphere of 
expression grew more and more restricted, his connection with 
the system more and more binding. The whole care being be- 

f stowed upon outward results, the inner life was starved and all 
its energies contracted. But this involves a contradiction which 
vitally affects the system of realism, not only in its logical but 
also in its historical aspect. Men had been attracted to the 
movement by the hope that, through entering into closer rela- 
tions with their environment, they would increase the richness 
and resource of life, and pass from the shadowy existence they 
had hitherto endured into the full experience of reality. A strong 
emotional bias influences in this sense the whole development of 
realism. But now the world which was to provide the basis 
and means to such a life turns ominously against the soul which 
was to realise it. He who aimed at being the lord of his own 
^labour is now in danger of becoming its slave. He is subdued 
by the work of his own hand. The point of vantage whence he 
might transform events into experiences becomes more and more 
visionary and unattainable. The whole system thus falls to 
pieces. Through the collapse of the inward life, that so-called 
reality which was to have dispelled the shadowiness of existence 
becomes itself a shadow. With the loss of all self-communion, 
our life ceases to be in any real sense our own : it becomes the 



554 THE MODERN WORLD 

mere role which nature and destiny have thought fit to assign 
to us. 

Such a movement was bound before long to meet with oppo- 
sition. The opposition came from two different quarters. It 
came both from the side of a new idealism, which was bent on 
upholding against all dissuasions to the contrary the claims of a 
spiritual cosmos, and also from the side of a subjectivism, which 
made salvation depend on a self -withdrawal into the unchartered 
freedom of a purely subjective experience. In any given person 
the two tendencies may meet and mingle till it is impossible to 
distinguish the one from the other. But in their own nature 
they are distinct, and call, therefore, for separate treatment. 

(a) Idealistic Movements in the Nineteenth Century 

Many streams of tendency have united to swell the current of 
the idealistic movement of recent times. But amid much ebb 
and flow we detect the persistent impetus of the older move- 
ment, though reinforced by other propulsions of a new kind. 
The idealism of the German poets and philosophers did not by 
any means disappear with the progress of realism : it spread to 
other nations, bringing into being new movements, whose form 
of appearance varied with the type and condition of the nation 
affected. Were we not still drawn, as in the previous course of 
our inquiry, to give the problems that lie nearer to us precedence 
over those that are more remote, we should have been strongly 
tempted to make a study of the far-reaching influence exercised 
over human life by the German Idealistic movement, and to trace 
how its different aspects attracted different peoples, and how the 
movement, in being thus variously assimilated, suffered changes 
of a corresponding kind. For not only did each nationality 
appropriate the new material in its own way, it sought also to 
accentuate essentials, grasped the detail more clearly as a whole, 
and gave due effect to the leading ideas. Thus to take a special 
instance: while the Germans have inclined to emphasise the 
contrast between Kant and Hegel, the English have been mainly 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 555 

impressed by the agreement between the two thinkers; and it is 
only another illustration of the same tendency that they should 
find it easier than we do to effect a sympathetic rapprochement 
between our classical and our romantic writers. For our 
neighbours, the manifold differences between the two schools are 
less significant than the ideal of life which is common to both, the 
life which transcends all merely utilitarian considerations and 
within the depths of our own personality opens up a new world. 

The greater attention devoted by the nineteenth century to the 
study of history and society served in many ways to encourage 
the shaping of life in an idealistic direction. The revival of the 
past in all its breadth and fulness, and above all, the increased 
familiarity with its heroic epochs, were in themselves an immense 
enrichment of the general life; and as the work of the time was 
seen to affiliate itself with that of remote antiquity through an 
unbroken chain of connecting links, a broader basis was won for 
life and at the same time greater steadiness and stability. We 
need only refer to religion, law and art to see how effectively 
the historical movement has brought out the fulness and the force, 
the concreteness and the individuality of the spiritual life. 

The expansion of life from an individual to a social centre, 
from the single self to the social organism, has brought about 
very similar results. It is not only the state, but the churches 
as well, that have gained in power and influence through their 
more stable organisation and the greater energy they have 
shown in grappling with social problems which incessantly grow 
more formidable and insistent. And in proportion as these 
systems have developed, they have striven to awaken the indi- 
vidual member to a sense of his intimate connections with the 
life of the whole, and, avoiding all exercise of outward compul- 
sion, have sought to induce him to shape his own life for himself. 
These tendencies are plainly operative in the life of the state; 
but the church demands no less a broad and liberal basis. In the 
words of Cardinal Newman, the church can no longer afford to 
be a mere "institution of gentlemen for gentlemen," and as the 
writer proceeds to show, the desire for greater spontaneity of life 



556 THE MODERN WORLD 

may be true sister to the longing for historical solidarity, for an 
all-sustaining tradition. 

Finally, it is through a conjunction of historical and social 
motives that the idea of nationality has won its elevating and 
cementing influence. Art, both literary and plastic, has found, 
through its close alliance with national history, a perennially 
fruitful vocation. It has been able to body forth the cherished 
memories of a people in living shapes that speak with power to 
the soul, and by casting the halo of romance over ordinary life 
has relieved it of its emptiness and unreality. 

In these, as in many other ways, the tendencies that mark the 
movement of the nineteenth century have worked in_favour of 
idealism and its advocacy of a spiritual order. Of especial im- 
portance for the furthering of idealistic conviction was the fact 
that no longer, as in the days of the Enlightenment, did the spir- 
itual life appear to be concentrated within a number of solitary 
individualities, but was felt to be diffused through all the con- 
nections of the great corporate whole, whose solidarity is made 
manifest in history and society. The inward life now fully self- 
organised thus assumes the cohesion of a world, and can effec- 
tively cope with the organisation of nature. Such consolidated 
advance of the spiritual life is in itself sufficient evidence that the 
progress of the nineteenth century does not respond exclusively 
to the Realistic Idea. But other influences have militated 
against the dominance of realism. The century has come to see 
that its subservience to realistic standards has been cramping its 
development, and reactions against a realist order of life, reac- 
tions that have become ever more and more pronounced, have, 
accordingly, arisen within the very movement of realism itself. 
Nor is it the mere form of life that has proved unsatisfying, but 
also its content. Men have felt more and more poignantly how 
unsatisfying is all action that is merely utilitarian, and, as such, 
persistently thwarts the spontaneous development of life from 
within, attaches it to supports outside itself, and will not vouch- 
safe to it any value for its own sake. There is born a yearning 
which takes deeper and ever deeper root for what is both in- 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 557 

wardly and expressively beautiful, beautiful in the more uni- 
versal sense of giving joy in itself, and beautiful also in the nar- 
rower sense of yielding a specifically aesthetic satisfaction ; there 
arises a longing that the whole life may be invaded by that 
authentic loveliness which transcends and chastens the appetites 
and all their joys. This aspiration meets us in the thought and 
art of all the civilised nations, and in the case of such men as 
Ruskin it crystallises into a creed. 

Corresponding to the movement from utilitarianism to beauty 
for beauty's sake, there is a change in the disposition of life it- 
self, a movement from social solidarity and its historical basis to 
the self-sufficiency of personality, of individuality. The tyran- 
nical pressure exerted by society — a pressure which tells more 
heavily against freedom than the mere fiat of a despot can pos- 
sibly do — could not fail to provoke a reaction through the painful 
feelings excited by its smoothing, equalising, levelling propen- 
sities. A strong desire for independence asserts itself, a desire 
for individual importance and distinction. Personality becomes 
again the first and foremost consideration. And by personality 
is meant a concentration-centre of the spiritual world, a point of 
convergence for countless threads of existence, a point, again, 
at which life acquires the immediate certainty of its own exist- 
ence, is exalted to a state of pure self-immediacy, and can at the 
same time gather itself together for resolute action and energeti- 
cally challenge such abuses as its environment offers. However, 
the intellectual expression of these convictions is treated as of 
secondary importance. They have value only as radiations of the 
life's own process, and therefore share in the activity and the 
freedom of the life itself. These views give rise to a new type of 
idealism, to a personal idealism, of which Carlyle and Emerson 
may be reckoned as the chief exponents. Both start from the 
basis of Protestant Christianity, nor do they ever break away 
from this point of departure, but they throw off all allegiance to 
doctrinal formulas, regarding them as mere symbols and noth- 
ing more. They hold to life itself as the one supreme fact, and, 
having grasped its essentially human element, set it forth with the 



558 THE MODERN WORLD 

utmost clearness. In Carlyle's case, these convictions take a 
form which is somewhat harsh and austere. The forces of per- 
sonality are here mustered in full strength and defiantly establish 
their superiority to the world. In the fervour of heroic thought 
they wage relentless war against all the wrongs and insincerities 
of the age. Emerson's temper is more gracious and friendly, and 
though it meets us fresh from the upper reaches of thought, its 
keen intellectual refinement never impairs the earnestness of his 
message. The human note he strikes, the vital thought he 
breathes, are laden with glimpses of reality potent to harmonise 
man's spirit with itself, with the world in which he lives, and 
With the nature that is around him. This personal idealism, 
with its wealth of stimulus and its close relation to modern life, 
is in no sense a mere echo of the German Idealistic movement, 
though it stands in manifest connection with it ; it takes its place 
as an original systematisation of life, as a unique achievement of 
the nineteenth century. 

But whatever value we may continue to attach to this form of 
idealism, we cannot disguise from ourselves the fact that it does 
not really vindicate its own contention — the thesis, namely, that 
a self-dependent spiritual cosmos envelops the whole being of 
man — but rather reaffirms positions held by previous thinkers. 
Nor can we deny that it gives us rather the experience and con- 
fession of certain unique individuals than an organised life in 
which all forces co-operate for the common good, and that in 
this respect realism has, indeed, the advantage over it. The 
movement may succeed in weakening the force of realism, 
but it is powerless to subdue it once and for all. If Realism 
is to be radically dealt with, it is not enough to insist on its limi- 
tations, its rights must also be respected. Realism can be con- 
quered only through being assigned its proper place within some 
larger and more generous scheme of life. Who could wish to 
deny that we are still left with questions yet unanswered, and 
problems that are yet unsolved ? 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 559 

(b) Subjectivism. Nietzsche 

Subjectivism is more closely related to realism than to ideal- 
ism in this respect, that it restricts the whole life of man to the 
•^sphere of immediate experience. But within this sphere it is 
radically opposed to realism, since reality, as subjectivism con- 
ceives it, lies primarily in the individual's own subjective condi- 
tion, and not in outside things. Moreover, its main aim is not, 
as in realism, the subjugation of the external world, but the full 
unfolding of the Subject. Now the capacity to take refuge in 
subjective feeling, and in this retreat to fortify oneself against all 
outside disturbance, is the inalienable birthright of a man, nor 
can the advance of realism, however irresistible, deprive him of 
this right. Thus the path of subjectivism became the highway 
for those who sought escape from the pitiless encroachments of 
realism, and it was followed up with ardent enthusiasm. 

As this passion took root and grew, the scheme of life which it 
evolved proved in all respects antagonistic to the corresponding 
scheme of realism. A concern for one's own individual condi- 
tion runs counter to the temper which troubles over the state of 
society; the emphasising of the peculiar, the distinctive, the 
unique, conflicts with the requirement of a universal order, and 
with the demand for corporate, collective effort; the contention 
that each man must be characteristically himself and that every 
sphere of life is sui generis contradicts the counter-claim that all 
men shall be equal, and all spheres alike. Political and social 
activity yields place to artistic and literary creation, which now 
asserts itself as the chief means for insuring to the individual 
full self-possession and enjoyment. Subjectivism appeals to 
art, apart from whose aid, indeed, it would speedily have become 
a shadowy schema, empty of all content. And art, summoned 
to the new task of giving shape and fixity to subjective moods, 
assumes an appropriately peculiar form: its main aim is no 
longer that of faithfully copying the object, but rather of stirring J3 
the soul intensely and begetting ecstasies of emotion. Every- 
where, so far at least as the influence of this movement extends, 



560 THE MODERN WORLD 

we find outline sacrificed to colour, the drama to the lyric. Such 
plays as do exercise a potent influence over the mind of the time 
owe their success, above all, to the appeal they make to the 
emotions; and even when the dramatic interest bears on prob- 
lems affecting social relations, the dramatist cares less about 
giving a true and faithful rendering of the facts than he does 
about vividly portraying the effects produced by these facts upon 
the mind. We must, however, admit that subjectivism has 
herein a certain advantage over idealism, that it is able to aban- 
don itself to these impressions and emotional agitations without 
either prejudice or ethical bias. Here for the first time the in- 
ward life seems able to unfold its rich resources without let or 
hindrance, and each individual being seems at last to enter into 
the full possession and enjoyment of his freedom. 

A movement so broadly influential as this, affecting as it did 
all the civilised peoples and rich in literary inspiration, was 
bound to find expression in some philosophy of life. Such a 
philosophy we have in Nietzsche's (1844-1900). Conflicting as 
may be the judgments passed upon this remarkable thinker and 
artist, it is at least certain that the influence which he exercises 
would be unaccountable apart from the existence of a wide- 
spread temper answering to his own, a temper which not only 
finds itself reflected in his writings, but also ennobled, ennobled 
by artistic genius. And what is here so brilliantly set forth, 
exercising on the heart already tuned to the message a magical 
fascination, is the complete sovereignty of the self-sufficing sub- 
ject, proudly repudiating all connection with a non-ego ; it is the 
limitless rights of the artistically gifted individuality. A deep- 
rooted, variously motived aversion to the prevailing tendencies 
of the time here finds a concentrated expression : indignation at 
a stereotyped, hidebound civilisation which depresses all life to 
a dead, soulless level; a rebellion against the sacrifice of indi- 
viduality to the enslaving requirements of conformity and prac- 
tical utility; a profound dislike to the self-complacency and 
arrogance of the bourgeoisie, whether lettered or unlettered; 
a dislike of the tendency, all too marked in the habits of the 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 561 

German races, to shut oneself up within the narrow limits and 
barren seclusion of the philistine's world; and finally, a native 
repugnance to all moral and religious ties, the spiritual meaning 
of which is, however, wholly lost sight of. With the repudiation 
of these ties there grows up a vehement desire for a wider life, 
a longing for the unrestrained development of all one's faculties, / 
the will for authority and power. Everywhere we find the indi- 
vidual called upon to limit himself and practise self-sacrifice: 
he is to submit himself to the control of others, to adjust himself 
to others, sacrifice his interests to those of others. Yet for what 
reason and to what end? And how, indeed, are these ties to 
persist once they have been inwardly outlived by the progress of 
civilisation ? Let the individual exalt his own life, and make the 
realisation of this his one supreme end. Let him strive above all 
else to enjoy and to aggrandise himself, to raise his lot above the 
average and increase to his utmost capacity the distance between 
himself and the common herd. Civilisation reaches its climax, 
not in the moderate well-being of the majority, but in the strik- 
ing successes of the few. Submission to a stereotyped past must 
give way before a full and vigorous appropriation of the living 
present. The outlook bears promise of a new life, incomparably 
richer, sincerer and more animated. 

It is extremely difficult to give any just estimate of this whole 
movement. Those to whom this philosophy appeals are too apt 
to lose all power of criticism in their admiration for it, whereas 
those whom it repels are inclined to reject it root and branch. 
We must be particularly on our guard, however, against judging 
and condemning the system on the ground of the rabid character 
of some of its utterances. A philosophical emotionalism such as 
Nietzsche's would be untrue to its own nature, did the passing 
moment fail to chronicle the passing mood; and the system 
being what it is, it was inevitable that the thinker, in rejecting 
what he felt to be foreign and hostile, should support the rejec- 
tion with the whole force of his passionate nature. There is 
much that is rude and untempered in Nietzsche, much that may 
wound contrary susceptibilities, and indeed cannot help doing 



562 THE MODERN WORLD 

so. Moreover, when the thought, as here, follows the mood, 
glaring contradictions are unavoidable, and to attempt to bring 
the whole into one teachable system is to attempt the impossible. 
Still other thinkers have been open to the same criticism, without 
thereby forfeiting their importance as thinkers; Nietzsche is 
perfectly entitled to demand that in appreciating his work we 
shall consider it as a whole and in its most distinctive quality. 

The peculiarity of Nietzsche's work does not lie in the nov- 
elty of its content; the main thoughts, even the characteristic 
aphorisms, can be traced back to an older date, and in this 
respect the thinker appropriated and developed much more than 
he created. What is new is the form in which this content is 
presented. A peculiarly refined sensibility and a remarkably 
vivid and penetrating style give to the old the power of the new, 
the influence and spontaneity of the present. How ancient, for 
instance, is the idea of a periodicity in things, of the endless self- 
repetition of the order of nature, and yet how Nietzsche makes 
us feel it as though it were a new truth! We might go further 
and say that Nietzsche's way of referring everything exclusively 
to the emotional mood of the subject, with his craving for life, 
sets the whole aspect of being in a new and peculiar light. All 
things now move and are in flux; the whole splits asunder into 
forces that work either for or against ; the sharpest contrasts are 
set up; nothing is neutral or indifferent; everything has its 
strong, emotional colouring and is pressed into party-service. 
The more deeply the levelling, equalising tendencies of the 
modern realistic culture were realised, the more would Nietz- 
sche's conception of life appear as a reviving and emancipating 
force, an initiation into a life of spontaneity and originative power. 

But the very circumstance which gives to this whole view its 
uniqueness and effectiveness, the constant reference to the mood 
of the individual, the mood in which the individual self-con- 
sciously exercises his own freedom, also defines its limits and 
indicates its dangers. For a philosophy of this mood-centred 
kind, however ennobled it may be through the power and the 
beauty of art, is still unable to lose itself disinterestedly in ob- 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 563 

jects and realise their meaning from within ; it cannot do justice 
to the activities of things from the point of view of their inner 
necessities and connections, and in consequence of this limita- 
tion, it is also unable to distinguish between the essence of any 
given matter and its realisation through human agency. Im- 
pressions are appropriated in the total form in which they are 
presented, and their worth approved according to their value 
for the Subject. It is impossible to be just under these condi- 
tions, and a philosophy which is bound by them is very liable to 
fall into exaggerations, whether of approval or of disapproval; 
and the disapproval, in particular, is apt to degenerate into gro- 
tesque caricature. 

This subjective emotionalism fails also in achieving its own 
distinctive end, the attainment of an inward self-sufficiency; for 
it is only when the human organism is inwardly gr6wing, stead- 
fastly rooted within an inner world and nourished at the sources 
of the inner life, that such self-sufficiency is realisable. But how 
can this philosophy claim an inner world ? Its rapid flight over 
the surface of things yields it picture after picture, but no depth 
of inward meaning. The world as mirrored in the fleeting life 
of feeling cannot reflect more of the nature of events and their 
connections than can be fleetingly felt. What it dislikes may 
indeed be rejected, but it cannot be conquered. It is of course 
quite possible to indulge in paradoxical expressions of independ- 
ence, but the paradoxical form may easily conceal a real de- 
pendence. Nietzsche is too inclined to be content with merely 
parrying and returning blows. It seems to him that he has set- 
tled the whole question when he has contemptuously dismissed 
certain superficial views of a popular kind, which were never 
really held by any one interested in the subject for its own sake. 
If morality, religion, Christianity were no more than what 
Nietzsche represents them to be, their rejection could not but be 
hailed as an act of deliverance; but, in point of fact, at their 
own proper source whence they flow forth with spontaneous 
force and freshness, fertilising what is deepest in man's nature, 
they are something essentially different from what Nietzsche 



564 THE MODERN WORLD 

imagines them to be, and something incomparably greater. 
And we must remember that this subjective emotionalist ob- 
tained the material for his picture from a study of men rather 
than principles, so that even his rejections imply a dependence 
upon humankind. We do not deny that Nietzsche's system 
contains valuable suggestions of a moral and religious nature, 
but they are left undeveloped, and the balance of his effective 
influence lies with what he denies rather than with what he 
affirms. 

Nietzsche's work, taken as a whole, reveals rich, spiritual 
capacity, vitality, freshness, and the most extraordinary mobility 
of feeling. Thoughts flash and cross each other, interwoven with 
the most marvellous art, though the art not infrequently degen- 
erates into artifice. Incidentally, too, we come across many 
genuine truths, though these have no connection with any lead- 
ing motive. But we find no independent development of the 
system as a whole, no convincing simplicity of thought, no ex- 
pression of native spiritual power. And yet without these we 
cannot hope to overcome the distraction of the present nor win 
a stable basis for life. 

What holds true of Nietzsche holds true of subjectivism in 
general. The attempt to cut the subject adrift from the world, 
and make it depend on itself, was certainly stimulating. It 
opened up new possibilities and shed a new light on many old 
positions. But this by itself cannot give to life a spiritual sub- 
stance or an inspiring, unifying purpose. True power of thought 
tends more and more to degenerate into an artificial subtlety. 
The individual, in outbidding all others, threatens to overreach 
himself. Pictures are presented which ravish for the moment, 
but give no essential assistance to life. In the rush and hurry of 
many feet the truths that matter are forgotten and the inward 
coherency of our social life is lost. Thus, despite the rich diver- 
sity of its contributions, subjectivism cannot rank as more than 
a mere passing phase which humanity, under the spur of its own 
spiritual nature, is even now outgrowing and is destined in time 
to outlive altogether. 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 565 

V. THE PRESENT SITUATION 

The position at the present moment conclusively proves that 
the content of man's life is not the easy, unsought product of 
a natural process of historical development. For after all the 
weary work of many thousand years, we are to-day in a condi- 
tion of painful uncertainty, a state of hopeless fluctuation, not j 
merely with regard to individual questions, but also as to the 
general purpose and meaning of life. Through long ages of 
experience and many a painful shock of revolution, our western 
civilisation had won to a stable and coherent system of ideas and 
convictions which fixed man's relation to reality in a particular 
way, impressed a definite character upon our life, and assigned 
to the individual his proper position and task. Now when the 
modern world took up the problem of life and developed it along 
new lines and from a fresh point of view, it at first seemed that 
its activity was in no way directed against the traditional order; 
it appeared to be rather friendly and supplementary than hostile 
and subversive. Its later developments, however, revealed more 
and more clearly its revolutionary character, and the most recent 
neriod of all has been especially remarkable for the clearness and 
force with which it has brought out the latent opposition and 
compelled attention to it. The old foundations of life have been 
shaken and the new ones are not yet sufficiently established. 
Whereas the struggle used to rage round and about such central 
facts as morality and religion, their basis and their precise sig- 
nification, now to an ever-increasing extent the facts themselves 
are questioned; doubt arises as to whether they can really be 
affirmed as facts at all. And at the same time, man has lost his 
proud, assured position in the universe. The older thought ex- 
alted him to a position of unique grandeur, and required him 
to concern himself chiefly with the development of the traits 
peculiar to him as man. The supremacy of man is now more 
and more disputed, and especially the assertion that his place 
among the creatures is unique. But if this position be aban- 
doned, what are we to make of the purpose of life ? 



566 THE MODERN WORLD 

The problems which arise in this connection are rendered 
much more acute by the social changes going on around us. 
Hitherto, spiritual conflict has usually been confined to the 
limited arena of cultivated society, and the general mass of 
mankind has not been much affected. Now, however, the peo- 
ple are pressing forward ; they not only demand a voice in the 
settlement of ultimate questions, but require that the whole 
structure of society shall be regulated with reference to their 
opinions and interests. They are very liable, moreover, to that 
harsh intolerance which always characterises big mass move- 
ments. The masses are only very slightly and superficially 
influenced by the experiences and results of the general move- 
ment of history; it is small wonder that they yield readily to the 
impressions of the immediate moment and allow merely surface 
considerations to determine their policy of life. In a situation of 
this kind, where a select inner circle of culture is confronted with 
great social changes, the forces of negation easily gain the upper 
hand. The public lends a ready ear to the spirits of denial, the 
"genii with their tokens reversed." Against these stormy forces, 
a more tranquil reflection and profounder deliberation often 
nave small chance, and we may even seem to have lost all that 
had been so hardly won through agelong toil. 

This is one aspect of the present situation, and an aspect 
which every one will recognise; but it is not the only, nor the 
final, way of regarding it. Our whole treatment of the past has 
been based on the conviction that human destinies are not 
decided by mere opinions and whims, either of individuals or of 
masses of individuals, but rather that they are ruled by spiritual 
necessities with a spiritual aim and purport, and that for man 
a new world dawns transcending the merely natural domain — J 
the world, namely, of the spiritual life. It is only this conviction 
that has enabled us to assign to history any positive meaning and 
to extract from all the efforts and errors of different men and 
different ages some definite and permanent result. And though 
these spiritual necessities, this deeper basis of life, are apt at the 
present moment to be pushed into the background and over- 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 567 

looked, they have not, therefore, ceased to be operative. The 
man of to-day is much more than he himself is conscious of 
being, and the very denial of this deeper nature can only result 
in emphasising it, and thus provoke fresh proofs of its inde- 
pendence. In proportion as the confusion clears and we can no 
longer rest content with the usual half-hearted compromises — 
here Yes, there No — we find ourselves increasingly unable to 
relegate the fundamental questions of our life and our spiritual 
existence to a secondary, subordinate position. Even the bare 
raising of the problem implies a definite rejection of the shallow, 
self-satisfied negative criticism which measures its success by 
the extent of its robberies, and actually thinks it exalts man by 
systematically eliminating everything in him that calls for rev- 
erence. The struggle for man's spiritual self-preservation must 
end in one of two ways: either his nature will become stronger 
and richer, or he will be reduced to the desperate course of 
abandoning all his ideals. It is only a shallow, irreflective tem- 
per that can conceive of any third way as even possible. But if 
the balance of power inclines once again to the affirmative posi- 
tion, then again will the agelong struggles of mankind acquire 
greater significance. Though we may not cravenly seek refuge 
in the past from the perplexities of the present, we can yet make 
it live again within us in close communion with our inmost soul, 
and thus complete its labours by our own. For even as we re- - ' 
kindle it, we can free it from all that was only casual and transi- 
tory, and make it reveal to us the eternal verities that transcend 
our merely human vision. As we scan the story of the centuries, 
with all their changing currents and shifting experiences, we may 
feel more convinced than ever that away, untouched by human 
thoughts and wishes, great spiritual forces are moulding our 
existence, forces that give us anchorage and guidance, no matter 
how tumultuous the sea. History cannot, indeed, be a sub- s 
stitute for our own endeavour, but it can, and must, serve to 
guide it in the way of righteousness and truth. 

But the craving for a stronger, deeper life in a larger and a 
nobler setting is no mere echo of past ages, but an urgent present 



568 THE MODERN WORLD 

need. If to-day it finds but an incomplete and halting expression, 
yet its presence is unmistakable, and we cannot doubt that it will 
grow and spread, since it is especially the young, with their 
quick response to spiritual appeals, who, in every civilised land, 
feel it most keenly. 

That such a motive is really at work is evidenced more par- 
ticularly by the widespread interest in art. For though fashion 
may have much to do with this, and the average society person 
certainly looks to art rather for enjoyment than for inward cul- 
ture, yet we may very pertinently ask what it is that gives the 
fashion its power, and why men court beauty so eagerly. And the 
answer can only be that we are possessed by a longing for more 
soul in life, more inward joy, and that it is as an antidote to the 
level monotony of our ordinary environment that we seek to 
introduce into it the quickening, ennobling influences of art. 

The very obvious reawakening of the religious problem points 
in a similar direction; for it shows up in a particularly clear 
light the peculiar position of our spiritual life to-day. The main 
current of intellectual work runs for the most part counter to 
religion. There is still a steady secession from her ranks, and the 
secession is spreading from one social class to another. A devi- 
rTalising rationalism is now beginning to eat its way into the 
! masses of the people. If, notwithstanding, the religious problem 
is again knocking insistently at the doors of our intellectual life, 
threatening to push all other questions aside, this points clearly 
to two things. In the first place, there are other forces at work 
in man than mere intellectualistic reflection, and secondly, in the 
higher strata of the intellectual atmosphere quite different cur- 
rents prevail from those which are influencing the life of the 
people generally and even the so-called cultured sphere. Do not 
previous experiences justify us in believing that man's own spir- 
itual work will, in the end, prevail against him, and body forth 
in some new form the truths that are eternal ? 

Nor can philosophy escape the influence of this movement. 
It is true that philosophy to-day is very largely either of the 
learned professional kind, which hugs the shores of history and 



THE SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS 569 

natural science, or, in so far as it aspires to independence, takes 
by preference the form of an epistemology or critical analysis of 
knowledge; and there is, indeed, a lamentable deficiency of 
original production, a dearth of those spiritual creations which 
define the highways of human progress, raise the level of human 
life, and give fresh direction to the activities of men. But the 
aspiration after such creative work grows ever stronger, the 
limitations of mere learning or mere critical reflection become 
more and more patent. We feel with increasing force the need to 
synthesise life afresh, the need of some unifying, sustaining system 
of ideas. Such a system cannot spring from the facts as they 
present themselves to us in our ordinary unsystematised expe- 
rience : we must first transform them, we must have recourse to 
metaphysics. More than ever do we feel the truth of Hegel's 
saying that a civilised nation which has no metaphysics is like 
a temple decked out with every kind of ornament, but possessing 
no Holy of Holies. Mere learning begins to pall on us no less 
even than shallowness and negation, for it threatens our spiritual 
nature and with it our chance of truth. Before all else, it be- 
hoves us to secure the foundations of our spiritual life. 

There are two ways of regarding times like ours, times which 
are driven back on fundamentals, and have to struggle in order 
to safeguard even the bare possibility of a spiritual life. In the 
first place they are hard, uncomfortable times, distracted and 
unsettled, hotbeds of dissent and denial; the pettiness of man 
and the uncertainty of his position are brought home to us with 
ruthless directness. But, on the other hand, if once we clearly 
recognise the constraining force of their problems and the spir- 
itual necessities which inform them, they become stirring, pro- 
gressive, fruitful times, insuring to man a unique dignity and 
vocation. For they show that only through his own deed can he 
win to what is fundamental in his nature, that he himself is a 
co-worker in the building of the whole, that he is lord of his 
own destiny. Such times constrain him to look problems in 
the face, to seek no support from outside, but to find it rather in 
the world which is inwardly present to his spirit. They break 



570 THE MODERN WORLD 

up much, but after all they only break what was from the outset 
breakable. That which is permanent and essential stands out 
all the more clearly, and life emerges from the testing in a 
fresher, truer form. It is times like these which foster the sense 
j of responsibility, and increase the significance of the individual 

f person; showing clearly that, on the high level of the spiritual 
life, it is not the age that makes the man but the man the age. 
Thus, despite all the complexities of the present situation, we 
may conclude our historical survey without any gloomy fore- 
bodings. So long as belief can rise from the contemplation of 
ithat which is merely human to the recognition of a spiritual 
I world, we can look on our perplexities as purely transitional, 
and, while striving to mould life afresh, can still draw much 
that is of value from the spiritual treasure-house of the past. 
For the past, rightly understood, is no mere past. 



INDEXES 



INDEX OF NAMES 



Abelard, 250^". 
Albert the Great, 253. 
Anselm of Canterbury, 250. 
Aristotle, 44^". 
Augustine, 211 ff. 
Averroes, 252. 

Bacon, 336/ 
Bayle, 360 ff. 
Boethius, 248. 
Bruno, 325/. 

Calvin, 2g$ff. 

Carlyle, 557. 

Clement of Alexandria, igiff. 

Comte, 524/. 

Condillac, 416. 

Dante, 258/. 

Darwin, 536/. 

Descartes, *35 1 ff. 

Diderot, 416. 

Dionysius the Areopagite, 249. 

Duns Scotus, 264 ff. 

Eckhart, 260 ff. 
Emerson, 557. 
Epicurus, 81 ff. 

Fichte, 486/. 

Galileo, 350. 

Goethe, 464^". 

Gregory of Nyssa, 199 ff. 

Hegel, 494 /■ 
Helvetius, 416. 
Herder, 434. 
Hobbes, 359/. 
Hume, 420 ff. 

Jesus, 150/. 



Kant, 435/. 
Kepler, 350/. 

Leibniz, 388/. 
Lessing, 418 ff. 
Locke, 380 ff. 
Lucretius, 81. 
Luther, 273/. 

Marcus Aurelius, 93 ff. 
Melanchthon, 273 ff. 
Mill, John Stuart, 533 ff. 
Montaigne, 331 ff. 

Newman, 555. 
Nicholas of Cusa, 321 ff. 
Nietzsche, 560 ff. 

Origen, 193/. 

Pascal, 360. 
Pestalozzi, 459. 
Philo Judaeus, 100 ff. 
Plato, 16 ff. 
Plotinus, 102 ff. 
Plutarch, 97 ff. 

Quetelet, 533. 

Romanticists (German) 477 ff. 
Rousseau, 423 ff. 

Schelling, 490 ff. 
Schiller, 474 ff. 
Schleiermacher, 507 ff 
Schopenhauer, Sioff. 
Scotus Erigena, 249. 
Shaftesbury, 408 ff. 
Siger, 253. 
Smith, Adam, 409 ff 
Social Democrats, 542 ff. 
Socrates, i5jf. 



573 



574 INDEX OF NAMES 



Sophists, 13^. Voltaire, 416. 
Spencer, 535. 

Spinoza, 362 ff. William of Occam, 266. 

Stoics, 86/. Wolf, F. A., 459/. 

Wolff, Ch., 417. 
Thomas Aquinas, 254 ff. 

Thomas a Kempis, 266 ff. Zwingli, 290^". 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



jEstheticism, as affecting man's view ling, 491^".; Hegel, 501; Schopen- 



of the universe and his mode of life: 
Renaissance, 314; the Romantic 
Movement, 478; Schelling, 491 ff.; 
modern Subjectivism, 559. 

Affections (Feelings), their value and 
treatment: Plato, 27, 30; Aristotle, 
55; Stoics, 89; early Christianity, 
184; Clement, 191; Spinoza, 367 jf.; 
Hume, 421. 

Allegorical Interpretation: Philo, 102; 
Plotinus, 119; Origen, 198; rejected 
by Luther, 280. 

Apathy: Stoics, 89; Clement, 191; 
Gregory of Nyssa, 202. 

Archimedes, Fulcrum of: Descartes, 
352; Kant, 447. 

Art, its nature and value: Plato, 40 ff.; 
Aristotle, 67 ff.; Plotinus, 114; 
Augustine, 226; Renaissance, 314^".; 
Bacon, 343; Rousseau, 430; Ger- 
man Humanism, 458 ff.; Goethe, 
471 ff.; Romantic Movement, 478; 
Schelling, 491 /.; Hegel, 501 /.; 
Schopenhauer, 514 ff.; modern Re- 
alism, 523; Comte, 530; modern 
Subjectivism, 559/. 

Asceticism: late Antiquity, 97; Plo- 
tinus, in; Origen, 196; Latins, 
209; Augustine, 236. 

Astronomy, its influence on man's view 
of the universe : Greece, 1 1 ; Plato, 
23, 34; Aristotle, 49; Bruno, 326-7; 
Leibniz, 402. 

Beautiful Soul: Rousseau, 427. 

Beauty, its nature and value: Plato, 
22 ff.; Aristotle, 67; Plotinus, 113; 
Gregory of Nyssa, 201; Augustine, 
225_$".; Renaissance, 314^.; Kant, 
451 ff.; German Humanism, 458; 
Goethe, 47 1 ff. ; Schiller, 475; Ro- 
mantic Movement, 478 ff.; Schel- 



hauer, 514; modern Idealism, 556; 
modern Subjectivism, 559. 
Bravery, as supreme virtue: Stoicism, 
90; early Christianity, 184. 

Catholicism, two tendencies of: 295^. 

Chance, belief in, Hellenistic Period, 
78; denied: Augustine, 228. 

Character: Kant, 446; Delineation of 
Character: Aristotelian School, 62. 

Child, Childlikeness, its importance 
first revealed by Jesus, 154, 157. 

Christianity, conception of its essence: 
Plotinus, 119; early Christianity, 
181/.; Origen, 193, 197; Augus- 
tine, 233; Dionysius, 249; Abelard, 
251; Luther, 275; Melanchthon, 
276; Zwingli, 291; Calvin, 293; 
Spinoza, 374; Leibniz, 401; Rous- 
seau, 429; Hegel, 501. 

Church and State, their relation: 
early Christianity, 189; Augustine, 
240 ff.; Thomas Aquinas, 257. 

Church System, its development: 
Latins, 205; Augustine, 236 ff.; 
Dionysius, 249; Thomas Aquinas, 

257- 

Class distinctions: Plato, 38; Renais- 
sance, 317. 

Coincidence of Oppositions in the In- 
finite: Plotinus, 117; Nicholas of 
Cusa, 326; Bruno, 328. 

Commonwealth, its full development: 
Renaissance, 317. 

Compassion, deprecated: Stoicism, 
89; Spinoza, 370; supreme virtue: 
Schopenhauer, 515 ff. 

Conscience, scientific analysis of: Sto- 
icism, 90; deeper view of: Kant, 

444 ff- 
Consciousness, how conceived by: 
Stoicism, 91; Plotinus, 109, 112; 



575 



576 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



Descartes, 355 ff.; Locke, 382; 
Supra-conscious: Plotinus, 109, 
112; Bruno, 327; Subconscious: 
Plotinus, 109, 112; Leibniz, 396; 
Romantic Movement, 479; Schil- 
ling, 492. 

Contemplation, as emancipating 
power: Spinoza, 370; Goethe, 
466; Schopenhauer, 514. 

Contradiction, as motive-force: Hegel, 
496 J7~.; Marx, 546. 

Cosmopolitanism: Hellenistic period, 
77; Stoicism, 91; German Human- 
ism, 460. 

Creation (spiritual), origin of this idea: 
Plato, 22. 

Culture, different interpretations of 
Bacon, 343; Fichte, 487; attacked 
Stoicism, 90; Montaigne, 332 ff. 
Rousseau, 426 ff.; distinguished 
from civilisation: German Human- 
ism, 459. 

Cultured society, its exclusiveness: 
Hellenistic Period, 78; Renaissance, 
317; German Humanism, 462. 

"Cunning" of the Ideas: Hegel, 498. 

Death, attitude of philosophy towards: 
Plato, 26, 36; Aristotle, 47, 52; Ep- 
icurus, 82; Stoicism, 89; Nicholas 
of Cusa, 324; Giordano Bruno, 328! 
Spinoza, 372; Kant, 440, 448; 
German Humanism, 463. 

Dialectic; Plato, 42; Kant, 440 ff.; 
Hegel, 496 ff.; Schleiermacher, 508. 

Doctrine of development: Augustine, 
227; Nicholas of Cusa, 323; Bruno, 
328; Leibniz, 397-8; German con- 
structive systems, 485; Schelling, 
491; Hegel, 496 ff., 501; Comte, 
526 ff.; Spencer, 535; Darwinism, 
539/.; its stages, 538. 

Double Criterion of Truth: Averroiis, 
253; Siger, 253. 

Double Morality: Stoics, 93; Origen, 
196 ff.; early church, 209; Augus- 
tine, 235 ff.; Rejected: Eckhart, 
263; Luther, 277. 

Doubt, in Religion: Augustine, 237; 
Abelard, 251; Luther, 279; in 
regard to the world: Descartes, 
352- 



Economic Systems: Aristotle, 63 ff.; 
A. Smith, 410 ff.; Comte, 529 ff.: 
Social Democracy, 543^". 

Economic type of life: A. Smith, 
410 ff.; Social Democracy, 543. 

Education, nature and task of: 
Plato, 24, 32; Aristotle, 50 ff.; Mon- 
taigne, 335; Bacon, 344; Locke, 
386; Helvetius, 416; Rousseau, 
428; German Humanism, 459-60; 
Schopenhauer, 513. 

Evil, its origin and nature: Plato, 16, 
26 ff.; Aristotle, 48; Stoicism, 88; 
late Antiquity, 98; Plotinus, 117; 
Christianity, 136 ff.; early Chris- 
tianity, 180; Origen, 195; Augus- 
tine, 228 ff.; Leibniz, 402; Kant, 
450; Schopenhauer, Siiff. 

Faith, its nature and its relation to 
reason: Jesus, 154; early Chris- 
tianity, 177; Clement, 191; Augus- 
tine, 237; Abelard, 251; Thomas 
Aquinas, 255^.; Duns Scotus, 265; 
William of Occam, 266; Luther, 
276; Leibniz, 401; Kant, 448; 
Goethe, 473; Schiller, 476; Hegel, 

495. ff- 

Fate, attitude toward: Plato, 26, 27; 
Aristotle, 54; Hellenistic Period, 78; 
Epicurus, 82; Stoicism, 87; Re- 
naissance, 320; Spinoza, 379; Goe- 
the, 467, 469. 

Feeling, as basis of religion: Pascal, 
360; Rousseau, 429; Storm-and- 
Stress Period, 433; Schleiermacher, 
509; depreciated by Hegel, 501. 

Form, appreciation of: Plato, 20 ff.; 
Aristotle, 47 ff.; Renaissance, 309, 
314; Kant, 437 ff., 444; German 
Humanism, 458 ff. ; depreciation of : 
early Christianity, 185; Augustine, 
226; Bacon, 343. 

Freedom of the will, defended or re- 
jected: Plato, 24, 32; Epicureans, 
82; Stoics, 87^.; Plotinus, in, 117; 
early Christianity, 180, 183; Ori- 
gen, 195; Augustine, 231, 233; 
Duns Scotus, 264; Spinoza, 367; 
Leibniz, 401; Kant, 446; Goethe, 
469, 474; Schiller, 475; Fichte, 
487 Jf.: Schopenhauer, 513. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



577 



Free trade: A. Smith, 412. 

Friendship, appreciation of: Aristotle, 
62; Epicurus, 84; Montaigne, 335; 
German Humanism, 462; depre- 
ciation of: Thomas a Kempis, 267. 

Genius: Storm-and-Stress Period, 433; 
Romantic Movement, 479; Schel- 
ling, 492; Schopenhauer, 514. 

God, idea of. Its meaning: Plato, 
36 ff.; Aristotle, 47; later Antiquity, 
9S; Plotinus, 115 ff.; Christianity, 
I 34Jf-> early Christianity, 178 ff.; 
Origen, 193 ff.; Gregory of Nyssa, 
201 ff.; Augustine, 216 ff.; Eck- 
hart, 260/.; Luther, 285; Zwingli, 
291 ff.; Calvin, 293; Nicholas of 
Cusa, 322; Bruno, 326; Spinoza, 
363-4, 373; Kant, 448; Goethe, 
468; Fichte, 488. 

Good and Beautiful, their union: 
Plato, 23 ff.; Shaftesbury, 408; 
Goethe, 473; Schiller, 475. 

Gradations of being: Plato, 29; Plo- 
tinus, 106 ff.; Augustine, 228; Dio- 
nysius, 249; Thomas Aquinas, 256, 
Nicholas of Cusa, 322 j?".; Leibniz; 
396. 

Happiness, in attainment: Plotinus, 

113; Augustine, 211; in pursuit: 

Nicholas of Cusa, 324; Leibniz, 

397/., 404. 
Happiness and virtue, their relation: 

Plato, 25; Aristotle, 51; Epicurus, 

83; Stoics, 91; Plotinus, 113; early 

Christianity, 180; Spinoza, 372; 

Kant, 444, 448. 
Hero, a manifestation of Divinity: 

Stoicism, 90. 
Heroism (greatness): Aristotle, 57 jf. ; 

Stoicism, 90; Christianity, 149; 

early Christianity, 184; Bruno, 327; 

Schiller, 476; Fichte, 487; Hegel, 

498; Carlyle, 557. 
Hierarchy: Plato, 29; Plotinus, 108; 

Dionysius, 249; Thomas Aquinas, 

257- 
Historical basis of faith disputed: 
Spinoza, 374; Lessing, 418; Fichte, 
489. 



Historicity: Romantic Movement, 
482; Schelling, 492. 

History (its content and value) : Plato, 
34; Aristotle, 60; Plotinus, 107; 
Christianity, 143 ff.; early Chris- 
tianity, 179; Clement, 193; Origen, 
194; Augustine, 234; Montaigne, 
333; Bacon, 337, 342; Descartes, 
354; Locke, 386; Leibniz, 398; 
French Enlightenment, 415; Les- 
sing, 418; Goethe, 467, 470; Ro- 
mantic Movement, 482; Fichte, 489; 
Schelling, 492; Hegel, 495#-> 5°5#; 
Schleiermacher, 509; Schopenhauer, 
513; modern Realism, 521; Comte, 
525/.; Darwinism, 539 ff.; Social 
Democracy, 543^-5 modern Ideal- 
ism, 555. 

Humanity, first accepted as a principle 
by the Stoics, 91. 

Humanity as an Ideal: Stoicism, 91 ff.; 
Rousseau, 428; Herder, 434; Kant, 
446; German Humanism, 458 ff.; 
Schiller, 476; Comte, 530. 

Ideas and Idealism: Plato, 19 ff.; 
Philo, 100; Plotinus, no; Origen, 
195; Kant, 446 ff.; Hegel, 497; 
Schopenhauer, 514; Modern Peri' 
od, 554. 

Ideas in History: Hegel, 497. 

Immortality (doctrine of): Plato, 31; 
Aristotle, 47; Epicurus, 82; Stoi- 
cism, 89 ff.; Plotinus, in; early 
Christianity, 186; Augustine, 235; 
Bruno, 328; Spinoza, 371-2; Leib- 
niz, 396; Kant, 440, 448; German 
Humanism, 463; Hegel, 496 ff.; 
Comte, 530. 

Immutability of natural laws: Spi- 
noza, 374. 

Individuality, separateness of the in- 
dividual being: Hellenistic Period, 
79; Plotinus, no; Duns Scotus, 
265; Renaissance, 311 ff., 317; 
Nicholas of Cusa, 323; Bruno, 328; 
Leibniz, 397 ff.; Lessing, 418; 
German Humanism, 461 ff.; Goe- 
the, 469; Schleiermacher, 510; 
modern Idealism, 557; modern 
Subjectivism, 559; Nietzsche, 561. 

Infinitesimal: Leibniz, 391. 



578 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



Infinity of Being: Plotinus, 117; Greg- 
ory of Nyssa, 201; Nicholas of Cusa, 
323; Bruno, 326. 

Innate Ideas: Plato, 32; Enlighten- 
ment, 348; Descartes, 357; Leib- 
niz, 396; rejected by Aristotle, 50; 
Locke, 382. 

Intuition of God: Late Antiquity, 99; 
Plotinus, 115; Jesus, 154; Clement, 
191; Origen, 196; Gregory of Nys- 
sa, 201; Augustine, 218; Thomas 
Aquinas, 255; Eckhart, 260; Spi- 
noza, 370. 

Jesus, character and significance of: 
early Christianity, 181; Origen, 
197; Augustine, 234; Abelard, 251; 
Eckhart, 263; Thomas a Kempis, 
267; Luther, 275; Zwingli, 291; Spi- 
noza, 374; Rousseau, 429. 

Judgment after Death: Plato, 36. 

Justice, its nature: Plato, 25; Funda- 
mental social virtue: Kant, 449. 

Knowledge as Power: Bacon, 340. 

Knowledge as reconciliation with Re- 
ality: Aristotle, 46; Plotinus, 117; 
Bruno, 329; Descartes, 358; Spino- 
za, 370; Leibniz, 404; Hegel, 496 ff. 

Knowledge as the soul of life: Plato, 
20 ff.; Plotinus, 109 ff.; Clement, 
191 ff.; Origen, 196; Nicholas of 
Cusa, 324 ff.; Spinoza, 370 ff.; 
Leibniz, 400; Hegel, 495 ff.; 
Comte, 529. 

Labour (work), essence of modern la- 
bour, 520. 

Labour (division of). Its significance: 
A. Smith, 410; Comte, 530. 

Laissez faire: Montaigne, 335; Rous- 
seau, 428. 

Lay-circle, formation of : Renaissance, 

3°9- 

Legend, poetry of: Romantic Move- 
ment, 479. 

Leisure, in the ancient sense: Plo- 
tinus, 117. 

Liberalism, its roots in Locke's phi- 
losophy, 384. 

Life, as enjoyment: Epicurus, 83; 
Montaigne, 335; as struggle: Sto- 



icism, 89; early Christianity, 184, 
188; Kant, 447 ff.; as art: Aristo- 
tle, 56; Renaissance, 314^.; Ger- 
man Humanism, 458; Goethe, 

473- 
Love: Plato, 29 ff.; Hellenistic Period, 
79; Christianity, 142 ff.; Jesus, 
158 ff.; Augustine, 240; Eckhart, 
261; Thomas a Kempis, 268; Spi- 
noza, 368^"., 371; Goethe, 468; He- 
gel, 499- 

Magical view of Nature: Plotinus, 
112; Renaissance, 316; demolished: 
Enlightenment, 348; Descartes, 
356. 

Mathematics, its influence on specu- 
lation and method: Nicholas of 
Cusa.. 322 ff.; Kepler, 350; Des- 
cartes, 351; Spinoza, 363, 367; 
Leibniz, 390 ff.; Comte, 527. 

Mean, various interpretations: Aris- 
totle, 54 ff.; Montaigne, 334. 

Mechanism in the interpretation of 
Nature: Galileo, 350-351; Des- 
cartes, 356; Hobbes, 359. 

Mechanism in the physical life: 
Hobbes, 359; Spinoza, 367; Leib- 
niz, 401; Hume, 421. 

Medicine, its influence on old Greek 
speculation: 11. 

Meditation, origin of idea: Plato, 29; 
late Antiquity, 98. 

Method, emphasized: Bacon, 338, 341; 
Descartes, 354 #; Hegel, 496^".; 
reaction against it: German Hu- 
manism, 461 ff.; Romantic Move- 
ment, 481. 

Microcosm (Monads): Nicholas of 
Cusa, 323; Bruno, 328; Leibniz, 
393 ff-'i Goethe, 469; Schleier- 
macher, 510. 

Milieu: Montaigne, 333; Comte, 529. 

Miracle, defended: Augustine, 228; 
rejected: Spinoza, 373. 

Misery of human existence (detailed 
description): Plato, 27 ff.; early 
Christianity, 180; Gregory of Nys- 
sa, 202 ff.; Augustine, 216; Luther, 
279; Spinoza, 370; Schelling, 493; 
Schopenhauer, 512 ff.; Comte, 
528/. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



579 



Monism, of mind and body: Aris- 
totle, 46; Bruno, 328; Spinoza, 
365; Goethe, 470 ff.; Schelling, 
491. 

Monologue, appearance of, in litera- 
ture: Marcus Aurelius, 93. 

Mood: Romantic Movement, 479^.; 
Nietzsche, 562. 

Morality, its nature and value: Plato, 
17, 23 ff.; Aristotle, 54; Epicurus, 
83; Stoics, 86; Plotinus, in ff.; 
Jesus, 159 ff.; early Christianity, 
176, 182; Clement, 191; Origen, 
197; Augustine, 222, 239, 243; 
Abelard, 251; Luther, 276 ff.; 
Zwingli, 291 ff.; Bruno, 327; Mon- 
taigne, 334 ff.; Bacon, 343; En- 
lightenment, 346; Spinoza, 373; 
English Enlightenment, 408; Hel- 
vetius, 416; Voltaire, 416; Kant, 
444 ff.; Goethe, 472; Schiller, 475; 
Fichte, 488; Hegel, 497; Schleier- 
macher, 510; Schopenhauer, 515; 
modern Realism, 522 ff.; Comte, 

529-_ 

Morality, restraint of, resented: Re- 
naissance, 314, 319; Romantic 
Movement, 478. 

Moral Order of the World, conviction 
of: Plato, 25 ff.; Greek belief, 78; 
Plotinus, 118; Kant, 448; doubted 
or denied: Aristotle, 47; early 
Christianity, 180; Spinoza, 364. 

Mysticism: Late Antiquity, 98; Plo- 
tinus, 116; Clement, 191; Origen, 
196; Gregory of Nyssa, 20 ff.; 
Augustine, 219 Jf.; Dionysius, 249; 
Thomas Aquinas, 257; Eckhart, 
260; Thomas a Kempis, 266 ff.; 
Renaissance, 321; Spinoza, 371. 

Nation and Humanity (their relation) : 
Aristotle, 63 ff.; Stoics, 91; Augus- 
tine, 242; A. Smith, 412; German 
Humanism, 460; Hegel, 500. 

Nationality, recognition of principle 
of: Romantic Movement, 482; 
Fichte, 489; nineteenth century, 
556; Augustine's position with re- 
gard to it, 242. 

National type, its influence on the 
view of life: Greek, 7 ff., 176, 180, 



194, 199; Latin, 176, 184, 205 ff.; 
Italian, 308 ff., 331; French, 331, 
361, 415 ff., English, 381, 386 ff., 
407 ff-, 533; German, 388 ff., 
Wff-> 454- 

Nature, artistic feeling for: Hellen- 
ism, 79; Gregory of Nyssa, 203; 
Renaissance, 316; Rousseau, 430; 
Goethe, 472; Romantic Movement, 
480. 

Natural law: Stoics, 92. 

Natural morality, religion, etc.: En- 
lightenment, 348. 

Natural Philosophy: Schelling, 491. 

Natural science, as emancipator from 
superstition: Epicurus, 82; as the 
guide of life: Bacon, 342; Comte, 
526; rejected as dangerous: Augus- 
tine, 224. 

Negation, its power in human life: 
Hegel, 496, 504. 

Novel (modern): English Enlighten- 
ment, 407. 

Objectivity in artistic creation: Goe- 
the, 471. 

Omnipotence of the State: Aristotle, 
65; Rousseau, 342; Hegel, 499; 
disputed: Locke, 385; A. Smith, 
411; German Humanism, 460. 

Organic conception of history, lan- 
guage and law: Romantic Move- 
ment, 482; Schelling, 492. 

Organism (concept and meaning): 
Aristotle, 49; Descartes, 356; Leib- 
niz, 392; Comte, 529. 

Organism, figuratively applied to hu- 
man society: Aristotle, 65; Stoics, 
92; early Christianity, 187; Comte, 
529; this conception rejected: Re- 
naissance, 318; Locke, 384. 

Panen theism: Renaissance, 320; Ger- 
man Humanism, 462. 

Perfection (as moral ideal): Jesus, 
161; Origen, 194 ff.; Gregory of 
Nyssa, 202; Latins, 209; Reforma- 
tion, 277. 

Periodicity in things: Aristotle, 60; 
Stoics, 89; Marcus Aurelius, 93; 
Nietzsche, 562. 



5 8o 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



Personality (conception of) : Aristotle, 
58; Leibniz, 396; Kant, 446; Schlei- 
ermacher, 510; new Idealism, 557. 

Philistinism: Storm-and-Stress Peri- 
od, 433; Romantic Movement, 479. 

Philosophy, as reconciling us to Real- 
ity: Aristotle, 46; Plotinus, n&ff.; 
Descartes, 358; Leibniz, 403; He- 
gel, 499; as support and comfort in 
misery: later Stoicism, 73; Boe- 
thius, 249. 

Pleasure, its nature and value: Aris- 
totle, 51; Epicurus, 83; Stoics, 89; 
Plotinus, no; Montaigne, 335; Spi- 
noza, 368; Locke, 383; Hume, 421. 

Predestination: Augustine, 231 ff.; 
Zwingli, 292; Calvin, 293 ff. 

Pre-existence of souls; Plato, 32; 
Plotinus, no; Origen, 196. 

Priesthood (in Christianity): Latins, 
208^.; Augustine, 239; Reforma- 
tion, 277. 

Private individual: Hellenistic Period, 
77; Renaissance, 317; German 
Humanism, 461. 

Probability: Stoics, 93. 

Progress, by continuous advance: 
Nicholas of Cusa, 323; Leibniz, 
397-8; Goethe, 467; Comte, 527; 
through opposition: German spec- 
ulative thought, 485; Schelling, 491; 
Hegel, 496. 

Progress, belief in: Abelard, 251; 
Nicholas of Cusa, 323^.; Leibniz, 
398; A. Smith, 411; Hegel, 497 ff.; 
Comte, 527. 

Protestantism, two tendencies of: 

295 ff- 

Public opinion, esteemed: Aristotle, 
60; Locke, 386; undervalued: Plato, 
18; Abelard, 251; Schopenhauer, 
513; containing both truth and er- 
ror: Hegel, 498. 

Purgatory, doctrine of: Augustine, 
236; Thomas Aquinas, 257; re- 
jected: Reformation, 277. 

Purpose, defence of: Aristotle, 49; re- 
jection of: Spinoza, 364. 

Purposiveness without idea of pur- 
pose: A. Smith, 411; Darwinism, 

539- 

Pyramid of Knowledge: Bacon, 339. 



Qualitative Differences: Kant, 442; 
quantitative: Kepler, 350; Leib- 
niz, 397/- 

Realism: Bacon, 344; modern Real- 
ism, 518/. 

Reason, ancient view of: Aristotle, 52; 
modern view of: Locke, 384; spec- 
ialised sense: Kant, 440. 

Religion (outside ecclesiastical Chris- 
tianity): Plato, 35 ff.; Aristotle, 
47; Hellenistic Period, 78; Epi- 
curus, 82; Stoics, 87; late Antiq- 
uity, 95#.; Plotinus, 103 ff., 119 ff.; 
Renaissance, 319 ff.; Bruno, 330; 
Montaigne, 333; Bacon, 343; Des- 
cartes, 353; Pascal, 360; Bayle, 
360; Spinoza, 373 ff.; Leibniz, 
401 ff.; English Enlightenment, 
408; Voltaire, 416; Hume, 422; 
Rousseau, 429; Kant, 450; Ger- 
man Humanism, 462; Goethe, 468, 
473 ff.; Fichte, 488; Sohelling, 493; 
Hegel, 501; Schleiermacher, 509; 
modern Realism, 522; Comte, 524, 
528- 

Religion and Morality: Jesus, 158 ff.; 
early Christianity, 176; Augustine, 
222^".; Abelard, 251; Eckhait, 263; 
Luther, 275; Zwingli, 291; Kant, 448. 

Religious organisation of life: Ploti- 
nus, 107; Augustine, 221 ff.; Thom- 
as Aquinas, 254 ff. 

Restoration of all things: Origen, 196. 

Rewards, deprecated: Clement, 191; 
Eckhart, 261 ff.; Luther, 276; Spi- 
noza, 372; Shaftesbury, 408; Kant, 
445; demanded: early Christianity, 
186; non-committal: Thomas a 
Kempis, 268. 

Romanticism, its nature, 477, 482. 

Sacraments: early Church, 208 ff.; 
Augustine, 240; Dionysius, 249; 
Thomas Aquinas, 257; Luther, 279, 
286; Zwingli, 2Q\ff.; Renaissance, 
320. 

Sacrifice, idea of, in Christianity: 
Latin, 208 ff.; Luther, 285. 

Science, as controlling life: Plato, 
22 ff., 41 ff.; Bacon, 342; Descar- 
tes, 358; Comte, 525, 529. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



58i 



Self-knowledge, different interpreta- 
tions of: Aristotle, 56; Stoics, 91; 
Renaissance, 317; Kant, 443; Ger- 
man Humanism, 461; Goethe, 467. 

Self-preservation, as motive-power of 
life: Augustine, 216; Spinoza, 367; 
Schopenhauer, 511; Darwinism, 

539 iT'- 
Self -respect, modern: Renaissance, 
319; as educational motive: Locke, 
386. 
Sensible world, various interpreta- 
tions and valuations of: Plato, 
27 ff.; Aristotle, 49; late Antiquity, 
97 ff-> Plotinus, 109, in; early 
Christianity, 180; Origen, 195; 
Latins, 206; Augustine, 228; Ref- 
ormation, 281. 
Social ethics: early Christianity, 177; 
Augustine, 240; modern Realism, 
522; Comte, 529 ff.; modern So- 
ciology, 533. 
Society and Individual: Plato, 24; 
Aristotle, 51, 65; Hellenistic Period, 
77^.; Christianity, 142; Montaigne 
SS 2 ff-y Locke, 384; A. Smith, 411; 
Rousseau, 426 ff., 431; German 
Humanism, 460; Hegel, 498; mod- 
ern Realism, 521; Comte, 529; 
Quetelet, 533; Mill, 534; Social 
Democracy, 546; modern Idealism, 

555- 
State and political life: Plato, 37 ff.; 
Aristotle, 63 ff.; Epicurus, 84; 
early Christianity, 189; Augustine, 
241; Thomas Aquinas, 257; Re- 
naissance, 317-18; Locke, 384; 
A. Smith, 411; Rousseau, 431; 
Kant, 449; German Humanism, 
460; Fichte, 489^.; Schelling, 492; 
Hegel, 498; Comte, 528JT.; Social 
Democracy, 545; modern Idealism, 

555- 

State (constitution of) artificial: Re- 
naissance, 313; natural: Romantic 
Movement, 482; Schelling, 492. 

State, reasons of: Renaissance, 318. 

Struggle, its significance for life: A. 
Smith, 411; Hegel, 497; Darwin- 
ism, 539^.; its misery: Schopen- 
hauer, 511. 

Sublime, its nature: Kant, 452. 



Suicide defended: Stoics, 89. 

Summation of reason: Aristotle, 59. 

Supererogatory Merit, origin of the 
doctrine: early church, 209; opposi- 
tion to it: Reformation, 277. 

Superhuman element in man: Plato, 
22; Spinoza, 371-2; Kant, 454; 
Hegel, 495 jf. 

Supernatural and Anti-natural: Spi- 
noza, 374. 

Symbolical character of existence: 
late Antiquity, 98 ff.; Plotinus, 
119; of art: Romantic Movement, 
479- 

Technical control of nature: Bacon, 
340; Descartes, 357; Leibniz, 399; 
Comte, 525. 

Terminology (scientific), foundation 
of: Aristotle, 69; mediaeval: Duns 
Scotus, 264; German: Ch. Wolff, 
417. 

Theodicy: Stoics, 87; Plotinus, 117 ff.; 
Augustine, 229; Bruno, 329; Leib- 
niz, 402^".; Hegel, 501. 

Theoretical and practical life, their 
relation. Precedence given to the- 
ory: Aristotle, 54 ff.; Plotinus, 
no; to practice: Locke, 383; Kant, 
444. 

Theoretical and practical reason: Aris- 
totle, 54 jf.; Duns Scotus, 265; Kant, 
444; Fichte, 487. 

Thought and Being: Plato, 18 ff.; 
Aristotle, 46 ff.; Spinoza, 366; 
Kant, 437 /.; Hegel, 495 ff.; 
Thought as action: Stoics, 88; 
Fichte, 487; Hegel, 495 

Transmigration of souls: Plato, 31; 
Plotinus, no; Origen, 196. 

Truth, idea of: Problems inherent in 
it: 436. 

Ultramontanism : 296. 

Universities (German), their emancipa- 
tion from Scholasticism: Wolff, 417. 

Usury forbidden: Aristotle, 64; early 
Christianity, 188. 

Utility, depreciated: Aristotle, 51; 
German Humanism, 459; main 
stimulus of endeavour: Bacon, 343; 
Spinoza, 367, 369; A. Smith, 410; 



5 82 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



<** 3b 



Bentham, 542; Mill, 534; Dar- 
winism, 540. 
Utilitarianism, religious: Augustine, 
222, 224, 225; Thomas a Kempis, 
267; social: Bacon, 343; A. Smith, 
410 ff.; Voltaire, 416; Bentham, 
542; Mill, 534; Darwin, 540. 

Veracity or Truth, as supreme virtue: 

Kant, 449. 
Vocation, its worth: Reformation, 

277. 



War, denounced : Aristotle, 64; Kant,' 
449; defended: Hegel, 500. 

Will, its importance: Augustine, 217; 
Duns Scotus, 265; Schopenhauer, 
5"- 

Will -to live: Augustine, 216; Scho- 
penhauer, 511. 

Works, their importance: Aristotle, 
52; Latins, 209; Augustine, 240; 
their limitations: Luther, 277. 

Wrath of God: early Church, 178; 
Luther, 285. 



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